The five-year-old twins who wandered
From their yard were finally found

Side by side in their matching outfits
On the bottom of a neighbor’s pool,

Staring at the sky through six feet
Of inviting water, holding hands.

On the roster of horrors, theirs
Is not the worst, not even close.

Children die tragically every day
And too often more than one

In the same family, as in the car wreck
Yesterday that killed four boys,

Two of them brothers, driving to Billings
To play in a basketball tournament.

Yet, years after it happened,
I still think of the twins,

Their unanswerable, fathomless
Panic, the froth of their flailing.

And then the moment they grasped
Each other’s hand and let go —

The way strangers joined hands
And let go of the burning towers —

Their separate struggles pressed
Flat between their clasped palms, now

Neither of them afraid alone,
Drifting again as they had

In amniotic waters where
Death and love are the same.