Andrea Cohen

Great Pond
January 22, 2020 Cohen Andrea

Great Pond

 

Tom swims
the periphery
as if trying
to lasso water.
I swim across
the pond––
again and again––
as if looking
for what I’ve lost.
And like clock-
work, or like
the shifting clock
dusk is, Lucy,
who irks us,
shows up with
her red buoy. My
lifeline, she calls
it, in case of, but
we know it’s
her death she’s
dragging
behind her––
that flame in water––
as she zigzags, as
if she, or any
of us could
outswim it.

Andrea Cohen is the author of eight poetry collections, including Everything, Nightshade, and The Sorrow Apartments (forthcoming). She directs the Blacksmith House Poetry Series in Cambridge, MA.