Cutting through this barrier drains the arms.
Pain shreds the back.
The chilled skull grows heavy and thick;
but somewhere amid the chainsaw rasping
a man can hear his own long-forgotten laughter
layered over now,
and his own playful chatter echoing the ice-pick.
The water below is deeper than any childhood.
In its dark rush one can almost see a boyhood growing numb.
The shining surface will deceive the lunge of man for boy,
will carry away the familiar face
the moment the hand hits water.
He will not find here the boyhood he remembers,
retrieved easily where last seen;
but someone else may catch sight of it,
carried far from here,
in a bend where sunlight breaks through
so that all can see and call the man to see
how dead the boy is now.
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