So the sudden bulletin charges through me static electricity in quiet. Until the body was found by a stranger, for days his mother grieved went looking, cursing silence. I walk up the stairs to my daughter's room search for her warm body in tangled covers on the muted bed. I gather her close, feel the sour breath of news prowl like some mythic raptor hunting for small game. Two helicopters pause above the river, tree branches whip in the wind.
Light crawls the surface, men with dogs scour rocks and shallows.
Pinned to the horizon, a woman clutches a baseball cap. Floral print billows. Natural, that a young boy decides to swim in mid-July, with a wet leap and kick of limbs arms part the water rolling over and under in mockery of heat.