The colicky child cried into the lake.
The lake, beginning to overflow with spring rain,
Rose up to the tree line, weeping.
The mother in the flannel night dress sank,
Her knees muddy with the colicky child’s screams.

A colicky lake, a four-poster bed,
A weeping child, a muddy mother,
All soaking with spring rain.

Along wooden paths by the lake
The ants ate away at the steps
The mother swam with her child in the storm.

The calm cracking of distant lightning,
The lake pulling the flannel nightdress,
Counting the child’s toes.

The child sprang up, the mother sunk down,
The lake swirled them in a wet dance
They hung on by their pinky toes.

The child’s teeth bit through his gums,
Floating above the lake,
His mother sound asleep in the four-poster bed.

Originally published in White Wall Review 41 (2017)