i. 

Soft strong scoop of the palms, a forehead
breaking water, followed by the body
of a child. More than the hop and dive, 
this is the moment she trains herself 

to look out for: something from nothing,
a shadow under the water's skin
turning wet and real, emerging. Hourly 
the dull shriek of the whistle, unheeded, 

a dance of feet against the surface
and with each stroke the water-tousled crowns
drowned then surfacing, alive, alive, 
alive. Behind her the lockers beam

their proprietary gleam, flecked with what
the swimmers' hands deliver from the deep. 
Marauding joy like the push of water, 
high, scouring sunlight, a tang of bleach. 


ii. 

Her youngest already seventeen, 
these days she finds the house too quiet –
at least, that's what she tells them when they ask. 
The pool knows nothing of quiet, laps 

incessantly with a tide of children
released from towels flung carelessly by. 
Repeatedly she wipes the reddish tiles 
though at the end of the hour like clockwork 

they pour back inside, lithe as fish, and
her locker-room becomes a shallow sea. 
These are her catch. For them she will lay out 
the mats over and over, make ritual 

of repetition. She knows their seasons 
and tempers, how they itch for the water, 
shiver when hauled onto land. In the shade 
of the hill she squeezes her towels dry. 


iii. 

Never the superstitious sort, she pays 
little heed to those who say there must 
be something amiss. Mm zai si! Brave
of them to knock down the temple – for this!  

Braver, she thinks, the ones who come to test 
the depths, their wagers of thirty cents left
clinking on her counter. No matter their 
peals of laughter, joy rising afterwards, 

it is the quick negating plunge that stays 
most difficult, the leap to silence 
that all children at first are scared of. 
And then to do it ten, a hundred times, 

to weave between the waking and the dead 
a line sinuous as earth, the water
making way… She shuts her eyes, listens 
for their slippered feet like cards being shuffled. 


iv. 

Watching, the hours turn to days, days months. 
She becomes accustomed to the water's 
pull, the way it holds her gaze, like a lure. 
On wet afternoons the building empties 

and there is only the spell of water 
crowning on water, the top of the pool 
a cloud-scattered field put out to flower. 
At the unguarded end of the year 

it is the same, the whole complex silent, 
except now a calmness takes the surface
that is of a kind with daybreak 
announcing itself along the corridor. 

Still in the dip and swell she sees them, 
their long arms partitioning the air
and every last niche on the wall behind 
packed again with all their dry belongings.