For three whose reflex was yes

Nobody I know is a god. A mother and son 
fall into the river's million hands, the river's 
smash and grab. They go under, climb the ropeless 
water up, wave, open their mouths and scream 
wet silences as they slide back under. 
A man jumps in to save them, leaves the edge 
as a needle into the river's muddy sinews, a woman 
jumps in to save his vanishing and the mother 
and son and is stripped by the flood, her pants 
drowning right beside her, another man jumps in 
to save them all and a woman jumps in after him 
to save them all plus one, cars arrive and people 
get out and leap into the river, the river's being filled 
with whatever's in their pockets and their hands 
and their eyes, with nickels and dollar bills 
and bibles and sunsets, the beautiful brush strokes 
of this beautifully dying day, people pile 
like a river inside the river, they keep coming 
and diving in, they keep feeding their breath 
to the water, which is less, which is thinned, 
until the mother and son rise on a mound 
of strangers and dead, the sun warming them, blessing 
their faces slowly dry.