Danger: Deep Water

Do not go beyond this point!
There is an undertow.

Black frogmen leap
from yellow lily-pad rafts,
a helicopter darts
and hovers,
like a giant dragonfly
dancing
over the marsh.

Men with long poles stir
the shallows,
churn the mud,
cast hooked lines,
grapple
the depths.

Bodies are pulled
from the water.

A mother and child
bundled, bagged,
and put on ice.

Carted away
in an ambulance.

Swift currents carry us away,
to home, to work, to play.

The river flows on.

There is an undertow.
Do not go beyond this point!