By the Tekapo River, 100 Degrees

Water
Hot green plastic bucket
Hole
Rabbit in the wall of the ground
Bone
Rabbit, hip, shoulder
Leaf      under a leaf of dust

On my way to wash,
The heavy buzz of flies like bees:
There's a carcass here. Rabbit. Eels
Live to be ninety. . . An eel will eat your hand.

I smell the past: where you swam with me,
Not toothed as you are, but as you were,
Safe in your first, soft shirt.