i stood on the wall,
teal tiled pool and i was the only one there
backed up against the water
i was the dam
i was the damned
there was red spilling out
from the aperture of my mouth
the children at the shallow end pointed
and, oh, how they screamed
how they cried
there was salt burning the skin
of my face so i should have liked to cut it off
the adolescents in the deep
laughed at me until i fell out of my body
and under the water
the adults in the beach chairs read magazines
rubbed on sunscreen
wore floppy hats and sunglasses
some boys burned the corpse that i no longer inhabited
so, that was the end of me.
