swimming

swimming

on Tuesday afternoon the water is rough with wind. I swim out three hundred feet and am seized with the idea that I will drown. I am filled with absolute panic. when I reach the shore, I am exhausted. I lie on my back for a long time, shaking.

on an unbearably hot day I stand waist deep in the water. my feet are wedged between rocks, and the glare from the sun makes my head throb. I almost feel that I am falling. in a moment I will lie forward and stretch slowly into movement, but now I sway in the water like seaweed. the lake current is nearly imperceptible.

in the morning, as I eat, I try to imagine myself gliding through water like some creature with slippery skin, sliding unnoticed and silent, deep between surface and bottom. I close my eyes, lost is this vision, until I am almost out of air.

one evening, three young women swim naked at dusk. they talk in sounds I cannot make out. when they leave the water, their bodies seem to glow. after they have gone, I drift in circles in the place where they swam. I am filled with longing and float on my back, looking up at the sky.

I swim across the lake and back. this feat amazes me, and I know I could not do it again. my hair floats away from my head as though it had life of its own. the water is steel gray, and I imagine a storm is coming. the air is electric.

at midnight I enter the water, my feet sinking into the mud, until I am chest deep in the lake. I pull my knees to my middle and am suddenly free.