Winnipesaukee

Every year someone drowned
in the beautiful lake. Some years
a truck fell through the ice,
and others someone would lean
back too far laughing at
a joke. The boat’s motor
would take off their legs.
At first thaw it was time
to tap the trees, the tall
buckets slowly filling up
with sap. It takes ages
to boil down to the syrup
you can pour over a cup
of snow. It was summer
when Libby found and revived
a body by the shore. She had
been listening to Cannibal
Corpse. Hannah told me this,
because Hannah remembers
everything. One boy, sent north
to our school from the city,
went out in a boat and never
came back. Every year
his parents returned for
a memorial assembly,
and every year they sent
a new kid from the city
to learn. Sap remembers
mostly what it must
be reduced to: the water
goes, the sugar remains.