Brothers Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Goose flesh stippled the skin of the new stripped boys
Giggling and shuffling like ducklings
Towards the pool

Their mother, shoe horning her breasts
Into an out-grown costume had shooed two sons away
To the waves, artificially blue, Trompe l'oeil of heaven

The elder led the younger from the crowd
As a priest marks off a sacrifice from the herd
The younger, trusting, chubby, an innocent
Toddled unthinking on.

The quick shove
Plunged him fathoms out of his depth
The water closed above him like a lid
A small eternity elapsed. Time froze.

The mother noticed the terrible absence
Screams brought a diver, a saviour
Who fished her dripping son in his arms,
Up from the water. Flopped on his belly,
Head to the right, he was a still life.

Then he twitched and vomited water
Death stepped back. The day resumed its course