The swimmers

Imaging that summer
Imaging those lives
The incident on the beach

What if they had been swept away?
What would have been?
What would have been if they weren’t?

What was and what remains
Bitterness, pain
Grief of lives denied
Lives different from desires
Wants unanswered

That sunny, windy day,
A different headstone
Lives, altered, changed

What if they had been swept away?
What would be?
Would words fill an empty space?

(Clare)
27/8/2010