AFTER SELLING YOUR LAKE HOUSE 

 

                        You’re sure, after your child drowns,

you will never return—yet, from across the lake, 

                        you watch the house,

once yours. Early mornings

                        you walk the road—approach the screen porch

close enough to smell their coffee percolating, 

                        hear the crack and whisk of eggs, sizzling 

slabs of bacon hot on their griddle. 

                        You want no one to notice as you listen

to the banter between mother, the children, their father—

                        his laughter rolls across the lake, 

reviving memories of your husband in this cottage, 

                        your daily patterns recreated now

by strangers. You stand alone resuscitating 

                        summer days filled with syncopated sounds

of the screen door slamming as your sons run 

                        in and out—you recall bonfires, fireflies, 

sunburned arms. Most afternoons now

                        you watch their kids sprint to the lake,

dive off the dock—

                        as their heads bob to the surface, you count.