Swim

My limbs unfold, a held breath suspending this neutral mass. The meniscus loops my upturned face. Still I pause, and still, but for a squeeze of blood, outwardly immobile. This flesh weighs the water. Thin clouds drift, a backdrop for swallows and vultures. Here at the surface a dragonfly, observes, reports, returns to base. Exhale. Inhale. Stroke. Glide. Reeds reflect slow as oil. I remember days as hot. On the way through the park to the club, slicing a thumbnail across a grass stem to fashion a tickle for Gamp’s sunburned neck. Sat in the shade with shandy and dominoes beneath the same window my father would fill for his last photo, a carnation buttonholed for my aunt’s wedding, before she stopped speaking. Beside me now, the dock. Split. Seasoned. Decorated by abandoned skins that hold vigil, glowing against the wood-grain, ghosts of the living. Here last year I coughed a clot. There’s a comfort knowing the pain of death is not that bad. Their passing not, necessarily, agonized. The lake feeds. I’ve not been bitten of late. Dragonflies feast with swallows. Later my son will sit on my shoulders and tickle my ears.

This work by Phil Rees is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.