Still

I saw the oarsman hold the high-sided boat stillin the current as the fisherman cast his line,

and then the long-dead yellow lab swimming upriver,the young German shepherd with bad hips trying to follow,

crying out as the current pushed her downriveruntil she scrambled spent onto the bank.                                                                        I go backbecause there’s something there I can’t get rightwhen the boy and I, our day’s work done, go out into

the rainy evening climbing higher and higherabove the river until, the cliffside crumbling under us,

we can go neither up nor down, the river beneath usswollen with a week of rain. They come with ropes, tell us

to tie them around our waists and kick away from the cliffas they pull. The boy goes first and as he kicks

a rock flies free and strikes his head, his body slumpingfor an instant,                        the one I think I’ve come for in this summer

of illness, not mine, but Bill’s, all waiting roomsand fears so loud I cannot hear my own,                                                                    it’s when the twilight

streams past the boy, his head snaps forwardand he catches up with the rest of his life. But this time

I see I haven’t come for him at all: I’ve gone backbecause crouched on the ledge afraid to move or look down

I can’t remember how I made my own way up.