To Boating Friends

Even if I threw
my life overboard
with the likes of you
and came up choking
in the midst
of seaweed
and starfish
my eyes would be
in the back of my head
looking for dry land
dusty cracked earth
bird tracks
snake prints
crossing my homeward path- I would be calling for them
even if I were going down
for the third time.

Notes

McDaniel, Wilma. (2001) Borrowed Coats. Hanging Loose Press, Brooklyn, New York.
Courtesy University of California, Merced Library. Copyright owned by the Regents of the University of California.