Swimming Lessons, first published in Borderlands volume 1.
Swimming Lessons
As I alternate raising hand from hip
to piped roof, beckoning
an ellipse to churn a few stripes further
along the lane rope, I see my childhood
swim instructor demonstrating the long arc
they want my arm to travel each stroke
and how, from each breath's tilted vantage,
my eyes should follow its ascent to swan's throat
curve to long reach for the water.
Implementing their direction mid-lap
I find an added surge, buoyed better
by thorough strokes. How sovereign the arm
seems, as the body heaves in it's wake, how
elongated the instant I gasp in.
My instructor belongs poolside in Southhampton,
this apparition hidden
in muscles surrendered to disuse,
an ancient body thawed in Scandinavian
tundras, no, trapped gas released
under kicked ash or popping
when the ligaments pulled, no, the body's
conservation program, catalogued
knowledge resuscitated in motion.
With ears puckered at intervals to leisure
centre wash I touch each narrow end
of the pool another twenty times,
envisioning gestures to use as storage;
the pinched flutter cupped by goggles
admitting chlorine, the muttered
palpitations during the long reach
way past the water.