Rewrite

Rewrite


Our children cannot save us
though someday we may find ourselves
in an unfamiliar sea
of sheets, calling their names.
Our children may reach down
but their arms will never be long enough,
they would surely miss us
even if they dove recklessly
into their futures, where we are,
in different orbits.

And we must not try to save them,
we must keep our wisdom to ourselves
when we are sinking, our mouths full
of desperate speech
and our children, above us,
in their beautiful
ignorant bodies


Stephen Dunn

Posted over on The American Poetry Review