Even Dali could not have conveyed
onto canvas the flickering shadows
and lights, the way they played desperately across
the under side of the pool cover.
He might, however, have been able to
interpret the mind of the young boy trapped
beneath it, legs tangled skin-cutting tight
in the submerged water volleyball net.
He might have understood the terrified,
blood-stricken eyes, wide and bulging with pain,
animal pain, begging help from his void,
glittering, round, alien tomb.
He might have been able to confer
the melting and fading feeling, which passed
across the boy’s face and preceded death,
the sudden surreality of calm.
I picture a work of pastels and lights,
running softly to one side, like ripples
on a pond disturbed by a gentle wind.
But near the frame, in some unimportant
corner, small and insignificant, yet
menacing, would be I; solid, defined,
uncontorted perhaps save
for my massive eyes,
with water still dripping off my head
from where I dunked it under the pool cover
and watched the young boy drown.