Drifting

from Two Ghosts/poems
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxECHO LAKE
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A gray scaly fish, dead,
with a glazed eye bulging
past its socket,
floated on the water.
I dipped my hand into icy Echo Lake,
rocking the rowboat.
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My father said sit still,
do you want to turn us over?
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Of course not I told myself,
because if we fall in and we sink,
I'll get lost in a bottomless evermore.
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Echo Lake was lassoed by trees
in a ragged circle,
the sky rising above forever,
and water that went down, kept going
on a path till it reached a star
on the other side.
Nothing returned to raise its head
ever again.
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If I called out
Help,
only my own voice would come back
over and over like a ghost
before I became one.
And that would not save me.
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My father was right,
so I sat still.
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