Still Life at Big Lake

We rode our bikes to a fat unripe pear. It was a Big Lake we wandered around
and found torn edges, yellowing and curved up at the corners.
It was a half-moon pear sliced through with pavement
swallowed in cornflower blue flat wash when it rained.
There was a playground dangling in the distance,
with busted swings on rusted chains.
No children went there or the ball field or the lake whose shallow pear bottom
was a swamp with a “no fishing” sign sticking out.
Rumor was, it was descended from a famous glacier,
but you can’t see that in the frame.
There’s just pale yellow loess
rising around it, lined with trees twisting to a vanishing point.
Our grandfather was born and drowned there

but we climbed out
and ran away.