Swimming
She wanted to sink in the water
to see the sun patterns on the white plaster,
but the her mother�s hands kept her up
to keep the chlorine from her eyes.
The sun makes patterns on the white plaster;
they swirl and dance like living things,
as if the chlorine that swells up eyes
kept these alive and breathing.
Her hair dancing, swirling, alive around her ears
she�s looking through the water
to see that even while she is alive and breathes,
her skin ripples, blue and swollen
And then she�s looking down�now in the water,
freefalling to see the lights on the plaster.
But her skin will swell, and begin to blue
if her mother�s hand doesn�t keep her up.
The dancing lights on the plaster wall
disappear from her sight�things will blur and fade
like the touch of her mother�s hand,
after age makes memory cold.
Time blurs childhood, fancies fade
into this water of forgotten lives and
cold memories. They freeze with age.
The hand that keeps us all up
has to let us sink into life�
down into the water or to swim alive, alone.
When my mother�s hands kept me up,
I didn�t think that I would ever swim myself
but I do swim all alone, in my life,
with the memory of her touch not quite faded.
I didn�t know that she wanted me to swim on my own,
but found it so hard to let me go.
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