The Rower (after Philip Larkin’s ‘The Mower’)

The Rower

after Philip Larkin’s ‘The Mower’

The rower splashes, again; keening. The twisted, 

weighted mystery pulls down his blade. A skilled

but sightless boy flails within the yellowed reeds.

He’d fought here before, even escaped, once. 

Now marooned — a venomed wasp nest of horror 

pinpricking his face. The searches will wait until dawn

where they will discover him dead and how she lives.

The unfaithful mother who nullified an unfathered 

child forever to summers alone. We should be wary 

of a parent’s secondhand love, we must not be blind 

to their ticking heart. Their quicksand time.