Christian camps are fixing
their plumbing and boats
in time for summer.
The weasel scuffling below the cattail
and breathing bluegill carcass
might be a man of the weeds and mud congregation.

Something else is turning my face black, though,
in the austerity of this place,
maybe the early morning mist
that tumbled and commanded the coldness
over the water,
maybe the cliff scarps cratering us here.

Swim to the island, pines
and granite blotched with dinosaur tracks
or stay playing Hearts where it’s warm,
climb the Raggers’ Trail for a private smoke,
go by Coleman lamp to the latrine,
watch bats squeak and drop above the campfire,
then tell me the lake is a dumb servant of men.

The joy is for convicts and converts now,
the lake is a captive, a well-treated domestic,
though master of the caretaker
in spite of its own shores.