how i have drowned or not

i would drown
once in the school pool with forty witnesses

and me; flailing in a snug pink swimsuit
scrambling for tile, for air, for my mother's

frantic eyes; that is how i would die
but didn't

so then again later caught inside a hard current
and undertow; glen's warning colored the jump-in

it was he who showed up downriver; who pulled me
to the brier patch on the opposite bank

and he who yanked my arm
and yelled to shut up when i cried

his tall skinny legs cutting a thorn bush path

i would drown again
several more times

on a saltless day
on a black night curve

inside a flapping mouth
gaped open like an owl's