Fifteen

By Emily Pohl-Weary

Water for a tourist,
an overdeveloped sun
in a photograph with a lake.

So happy to swim in foam
cool and smooth,
like the beer that pulls him under.

He dreams while he sinks
of the cigarettes kept dry
for the other side.

Liquid fills his lungs slowly.
The cellphone hippies on the next hill
keep drumming, dancing in the hot sun.

I listen as their drums
drown all other sounds of
laughter, crying.

There’s a shiny body bag by the side of the water.
Screaming blue hair sits in the sand,
rocking, watching the rescue team drag.

Back in the city:
pavement flows like a grey lake,
life flows into another fifteen-year-old body.