Call these the meditations of an overweight junior lifeguard watching an empty lake, up in this chair lording over nobody. The last swimmer gave it up hours ago, late-afternoon September, the day gray and lingering. The lake is nearly motionless. The waves curdle up the shore like frosting. I think of what it might be like to actually have something to do. Guard, my child. Oh, guard, my daughter, oh, guard, do something, do something–and so, stiffen the sinews, summon the blood, dishonor not my mother. Into the breach I catapult, out past the buoys designating the authorized swimming area, and execute the Lost Buddy Drill, except this time there’s a body. I dive down, down, counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and I feel my way in the dark water, across the smooth, scalloped bottom of the lake, and search for an obstruction, the soft inert peacefulness of the drowned. Come up, breathe. Do it again. Count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and all I want is to feel flesh, all I want is to break the surface with the booty, haul in the girl alive–alert the media–as people, my people, watch from the beach. Hail the chubby Adonis. No one will drown on his watch. This job–and how much else?–is one long unrescue. I’m in charge of the blind sand, of the lake, my lake, now churning, now seething, as the wind picks up, as the gray day lingers.

MILLARD’S BEACH, 1986