Goose flesh stippled the skin of the new stripped boys
Giggling and shuffling like ducklings
Towards the pool
Their mother, shoe horning her breasts
Into an out-grown costume had shooed two sons away
To the waves, artificially blue, Trompe l'oeil of heaven
The elder led the younger from the crowd
As a priest marks off a sacrifice from the herd
The younger, trusting, chubby, an innocent
Toddled unthinking on.
The quick shove
Plunged him fathoms out of his depth
The water closed above him like a lid
A small eternity elapsed. Time froze.
The mother noticed the terrible absence
Screams brought a diver, a saviour
Who fished her dripping son in his arms,
Up from the water. Flopped on his belly,
Head to the right, he was a still life.
Then he twitched and vomited water
Death stepped back. The day resumed its course
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem