When we are seven and he is four,
Gus drowns himself every day. "I'm thinking,"
he says, and the lifeguards learn
to disregard the screams. Gus floats
face-down in the shallow end,
with his hair like corn silk, hair that
goes green in pool water. His sister and I
do handstands beside the corpse.
Time passes. Us girls get out of the pool
to unwrinkle our fingers: suddenly
we've gone through puberty. Tonight in some lake somewhere
a dreamy Gus is lost in thought.
His poor new girlfriend is screaming.
photo: "Emmett Darling" by Sally Mann
