Raft

Raft Ted Kooser (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution At the said-to-be bottomless pondat the sand pit, the raft we discoveredwas a heavy barn door, maybe ten feetby twelve, halfway in, halfway outof the water where others had left it,probably older boys, always the firstto find something good, use it a while,then leave it for us, Billy and Larry,Danny and me, floating it out ontothe water, wading in after it, holdingonto its edge as we slid down the slopeup to our shoulders, then one by onehelped each other climb on, soakedand shivering, standing to balance,arms spread, each to a corner, facingeach other, frightened but laughing,not a forethought among us for a poleto push out with, nor a plank for an oar,as we trusted that door as it floatednot on but just under the surface,one corner sinking, then slowly liftingas another went down, ankle deepover the cold, bottomless darkness.Seventy years later, I still feel that doorsinking under my weight, can still seethe white faces of Larry and Billyand Danny looking across into mineas we held our arms wide, as if to keepsome wild, free, invisible creaturethere at the center from running away,and at eighty I know what it was. [End Page 45] Ted Kooser Ted Kooser's most recent book is Cotton Candy: Poems Dipped Out of the Air (University of Nebraska Press, 2022). He is a former US Poet Laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize. He and his wife live on sixty-two acres of rural Nebraska. Photo by Stancey Hancock Copyright © 2023 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

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