My Sudden Death: pushing the stroller to the lake
Canoeing here years from now, you will appear
half in, half out of this lake
where I’ve imagined you
drowned so many afternoons — held by canoe,
you’ll lie back below the surface the lake, too, an embrace
of your weight within that metal —
We’ve come to see
goslings push through thick reeds
a bounty after last spring
when the city poked a hole in every egg in every nest
After your birth
I wept reading of ancient vessels
found beside the bones of infants:
playful clay mugs shaped with nose spouts
and ear handles
to save orphaned newborns
or wean, the porous insides traced
with milk — sheep, cow, goat — and bacteria
deadly in the hollow rabbit or silly chin
I have tried
to give you what my body cannot I have tried
to form a vessel you will keep near
and fill with what you need
to hold what seems a lake from above a face straight on as I held yours
imagining you tip into yourself