--- K R I S T E N   T R A C Y

Yesterday, looking for snails,
five students died
when their canoes 
overturned.  The soft-bodied 
snails went untouched--never
breaking their hold 
on the rocks.  How much 
can a reservoir hold
in the dark?  Ask the moon
who was not out
washing their bodies
with light.  One student
survived and he might grow up
to be a scientist with 
tremendous drive--feel
a need to get a move on
and figure out his atoms,
how they fly, how they stay
peaceably intact. Some
of the drowned might have
dropped out anyway, they all
weren't going to be
scientists and perhaps
one of them was 
ready to die--already
entertaining it--so when
his canoe capsized 
it was simply a matter
of not coming up.
The paper said with 
all of their gear they 
sank like rocks.  Except for
the survivor who had 
been asleep on his pack.
The parents are blaming
themselves, but they still
want answers that will 
get to the core
of what happened. Yesterday
a mother broke a stone 
on a stone to see 
its center and found 
an ordinary middle.