TO A YOUNG SWIMMER

You could beat me in a race
if you weren't afraid to
come into the deep end.
It's disorienting at first,
the tortoiseshell patterns made by the light
on all sides,
not just the pool floor.

You slip weightless through the ether
but are tethered by fear.
I want to press on though
gravity's closing in.

See that stand of trees?
Beyond them lies the horror
of my adolescence.
I tried to drown my insecurities
in chlorinated silence
hold my awkwardness under
till it turned blue.

I want to coax you out
but I see you are untroubled
by your limitations
content to stay in the shallow end,
your loud pink sex toys bobbing
at the edge.

By the time I was your age
I was swimming at all depths,
pushed by a need
I am still trying to define.

links:

literary tree
Stories from the Infirmary
Real Poetik
Welding Invitation
Up Is Up
Universal Publishers

© copyright Thin Ice Press 2007
© copyright Carol Wierzbicki 1999, 2007
© copyright Molly Barker 1999, 2007