You are the shape of death kneeling among the lily pads.
 
The laid-out, prepared, bodies not sleeping.
 
The crucifix was your own, borrowed, put to use here…
 
splayed to look like a sacrifice, upright, a punishment,

a lesson plan, a warning.

It is a mythic lie to think of the carcass as reclined, relaxing,
 
sleeping on their lily beds.
 
It is as if your pink skin is a poison
 
and you've cleared this pond by diving in.  Something you

are known to do—some might even call it a signature move.

Even now,

you are scheming in concrete. You see the little dead

harbingers cleared away for a kiddy pool.
 
You close your ears and shout la-la-la should anyone

accuse you of being an animal too, an introduced specie,

that enters like a bullet.  The sky is a harsh season—

fallout rain as a condemnation.  Wading further in,

the browning leaves and dying fish in your wake, you say

its water off your back, though no duck will land here.

Some Are So Close