Swimming

1
Merciless white-hot light enveloped
my brown red skin,
baked the cement deck below.
Perched high in the lifegaurd chair,
the water taunted my parched lips,
promising refuge from the daunting heat.
I cast an endless summer stair
out across the steamy scene.

Young boys,
brazen in their serious play
splashed fiercely,
at the shy young girl
wading waist deep, her red mouth open.
She waited; secretly she wanted
to play, to fight, to feel the slip of sunblock
between her hot skin and his. She watched.
Occasionally shrieking with delight
when cold spray wet her thin bare arms
and tingling cool slid down and down.

Laughter and pressing chit chat from red ladies.
Red lips, red skin, red discussion
carried on under umbrellas by the bar.
Sipping a red cranberry cocktail
oblivious to the red blood surging
beneath her daughter's bathing suit.

2
The mid day heat froze at the sound of my whistle.
The piercing shrill silenced the splash,
mummed the red ladies' red lips,
and directed their eyes at my flying body
hurling down.

I see nothing but a smudge of dark,
heavy in the pace of chlorine waves.
My pulse a drum
beating in my ears as I
swam down and down.
The bare cement bowl,
drain in the center,
no bubbles bother to be this deep.

3
Her body is limp,
her mouth open and blue.
Brown hair swirls about her face
as I pull her tiny body up
through the chill quiet of this blue world.

Breaking the surface
red bodies and eyes gather around the lonely two.
Her weight is greater in this world.
Wet cement scrapes brown skin,
her neck craned back,
knobby legs laid at odd angles.
Brown hair, a wet pelt around her tiny skull.
The ground dents my knees, I hover over her tiny body
and pretend Lazarus whas my doing.

Water escapes her lungs,
precious breath flows,
startles her eyes wide.
The red ladies cry.
Her chest heaves in and out,
ribs showing through her suit.
Young boys shuffle their bare feet.