Becoming light

By Amy K. Genova

This time I decide not to count laps but swim until tired.
It’s hard letting go: 2-4-6 …. The gnomon’s shadow slips
over the outdoor pool. Rings un-number themselves off
my hands, five fingers squeezed like paddles clapping

water. But, then, that’s counting: tic, tic, tic. Anxiety
and sun clock my shoulder rosy. Will I swim enough?
Refocus on drain. Its clog of leaves. Cracks. Rust curving
like algae down the pool belly. Red and blue lane dividers.

Perhaps, I’ll just count 400 IMs, neat lengths of 4x4s.
Would that be so bad? My sleek heart beat beat beats
without breath of comma in-betweens, despite symmetry—
left breath, no breath, right breath. Three beats. Under

my 90 degree elbow, freestyles the tree-glisten and sky.
One perfect hole in the clouds, God’s A-OK. No more counting,
flip-turning. Just a good shove off the side into this glass slipper
of warm shallow into cool deep.  A red-hatted lifeguard, perches

above my lane. Does he mark my stroke? Think I need saving?
Two swimmers come & go. Am I tired? Invisible?
Turning, honeysuckle tickles my nose. A cloud-bit of radio
races after me. A thousand white leaves wade in sun.

For a minute my father rises from water. Glasses speckled
with splash. My heart dolphins. Pop-static warbles, Yeah you
make me feel like ….

When the numbers end, this is light:

cirrus strands, a boy in red trunks, the perfume of weeds,
a Doppler of dad in the pool when I’m five … this uncountable tune.

Tags: aging, death, light, Swimming