I guess it's silly but I've never been able to take this poem seriously...

"We had just left shore when everything began to happen at once. The water came in and we started to go down."

The situation can't be that life-threatening if they have just left shore... can't they just swim back? No?

I've always taken poetry too literally and rarely seriously... I can't seem to enjoy it no matter how hard I try.

um... "go down"... I'd always taken, not literally man.