Max Reif’s most recent poem to appear here was “Gratitude to the Trees” (October 2010) 

Back Then
By Max Reif

It was as if
the world was a beach,
a pleasant one, and we,
my parents, brother and I,
were spending a leisurely
while under our umbrella,
a prolonged picnic, if you will,
and somehow the years
went by. We’d get our feet wet
now and then, or wade
in the water up to our knees,
and giggle.
And then one day
I wandered out to where
the bottom
dropped away,

and I

couldn’t

swim