Father, Child, Water
By Gary Dop
I lift your body to the boat
before you drown or choke or slip too far
beneath. I didn’t think—just jumped, just did
what I did like the physics
that flung you in. My hands clutch under
year-old arms, between your life
jacket and your bobbing frame, pushing you,
like a fountain cherub, up and out.
I’m fooled by the warmth pulsing from
the gash on my thigh, sliced wide and clean
by an errant screw on the stern.
No pain. My legs kick out blood below.
My arms strain
against our deaths to hold you up
as I lift you, crying, reaching, to the boat.
Copyright Credit: Poem copyright © by Gary Dop. Reprinted from New Letters, Vol. 74, No. 3, Spring 2008, by permission of Gary Dop.