I'm taking a Modern Poetry course this term and one of the poems I'm reading is "Drowning Girl" by Beth Bentley. Since New York Quarterly technically owns the rights to circulate the poem I shouldn't post it in its entirety, but I can probably divulge a few lines if I cite it's for educational purposes.

She kept her white eyes open.
Through shifting waters, their glare
at us, scoured clean as shells.

Since it's my responsibility to write a paper on the poem I won't ask for the meaning behind the passage. However, a thought occurred to me, if a person chose to suicide by drowning would they normally die with their eyes open or with their eyes closed? From a psychological perspective most suicides are about escape so eyes closed would be typical, but if a person is angry enough and wants to hurt someone while dying they might leave their eyes open. Now the stare of recrimination is just one possible interpretation. To be honest it doesn't even have to be a suicide, murder would also fit the profile. It might even be a simple forensic response caused by the tides, buoyancy, or physics. A person who dies face down in the ocean might always have their eyes open.

I think, personally, the eyes being open is just a poetic device. I'm pretty sure that drowning forces the eyes closed, as once the brain loses oxygen the drowner loses consciousness, which would be like falling asleep, so the eyes would close, but I'm no forensic pathologist or medical doctor of any kind.

Maybe this will help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowning