Before the Accident || Cristina Baptista

Before they knew sadness tasted of mud and flora,
that loneliness was the color blue,
they leapt with faith and arms so open
the air could not fill them fast enough.

There was always something out of reach,
some ghostly mist that ought to have been read
as premonition. Their mothers’ warnings
to “not go too far out” and then the inevitable

chiding at the disobedience; eyes stinging
with silt; a sliver in the soft heel: the worst of things
meant to happen in a little life
unfolding, fernlike, from gentle centers. 

Later, they know the taste is “geosmin,” 
the exact shade caused by Raleigh scattering.
The water did not kiss the mountains
but teethed upon it with secret violence.

Now, the hush is too much to bear.
Too still. Every summer, other children
fill the spaces, tear the wounds. Every summer, 
a desperate leap, the eddies never reaching shore.