The day before, the child had bitten
into a water toy shaped like a fish,

her mouth sprayed full of tiny beads
like desiccated blood or a cracked

open egg case of an endangered beetle.
They were not at all like tapioca and

burst in the child's mouth suddenly,
the surprise frightening her, so she

flexed her tongue and spit, but could
not get them out. She wailed for her

mother, whose mind was trapped
in her body, but then she focused

and tripped into the pool to scoop
the child into the basket of her hips,

the examining tool of her senses
roaming, until she understood this

oil-based invader, and thrust the girl
into the pool, going down on her knees

to know suddenly and somewhere
in the back of her mind that the surface

of the bottom, so blue and inviting,
was in reality rough, how it might

scrape a child's feet, or how no one
ever complained about soft pajamas

that scratched on the inside since
all parents ever feel is the outer

layer, and this is what the mother
thought, as she splashed chlorinated

water into her daughter's gaping
mouth, the beads blistering the surface
like the bubbles of an underwater
creature. Below them the shadows

spread like a dark rash across a sleeping
fish's body. Above them, clouds like

fish gills. And the guard that day,
hearing them, leaning on the fence

asking Is the kid okay? His ear
phone buds against his throat like

a necklace of shells, and the music
no one hears but him raging through
chords that only exist in the nexus
of what was and might happen next.