High School Crew

In the early spring, when I was just fifteen,
My choices were baseball, tennis or crew.
Between Boston and Cambridge I had seen
Rhythmic oars of singles, eights, fours and twos

Beneath the bridges of the Charles River.
I was appointed Stroke. I paced the boat.
Our strokes made the running water deliver
Us forward. We would stroke and stroke and stroke

Lifting ourselves out of the brown water
Again and again. The coxswain pounds out,
On the gunnels, the rhythm of my order.
Tin cans and prophylactics float about

And then the rhythmic silence of the contest broke
In echoes beneath the bridges. Stroke. Stroke.