The girl in the swimming pool

It's magical to watch a girl begin to drown,
 suspended with her face towards the rain,
 then lift and place her gently on the ground
 and coax her lungs to believe and breathe again.
  
 Your dad had raced the tide, and fought his way
 through surf, on jagged granite, years before, 
 to reach and rescue you from panicked spray
 and the pull of the sea, and swim you back to shore.
  
 You fancy higher powers had bid him save
 you, so you'd later rescue in her turn
 this girl half-floating on her enchanting wave
 who sank, and rose, and sank; a stricken bird – 
  
 but when you lean out from the parapet
 above the shadowed gorge, where far below
 those blue and sightless swollen dolls forget,
 forget, forget, in time with the river, you know
  
 one life saved means no more nor less – beside
 whole families who cowered in stands of cane 
 and, hopeless, queued in quiet lines to die – 
 than one life saved: unlinked in any chain. 


Published in the Kent & Sussex Folio, 2019