| Feared Drowned Suddenly nobody knows where you are, your suit black as seaweed, your bearded head slick as a seal's. Somebody watches the kids. I walk down the edge of the water, clutching the towel like a widow's shawl around me. None of the swimmers is just right. Too short, too heavy, clean-shaven, they rise out of the surf, the water rushing down their shoulders. Rocks stick out near shore like heads. Kelp snakes in like a shed of black suit and I cannot find you. My stomach begins to contract as if to vomit sea water When up the sand toward me comes a man who looks very much like you, his beard matted like beach grass, his suit dark as a wet shell against his body. Coming closer, he turns out to be you-or nearly. Once you lose somebody it is never exactly the same person who comes back. Sharon Olds |