From shock of deep end dive
to a shallow turning
is thirteen, fourteen, or
fifteen strokes depending
on the force of kick applied,
and reach of outstretched glide.
Boredom kept at arm’s length,
I am a metronome
counting the span of years.
Voices lose their bearing
between my muffled ears:
all is rippled hubbub.
Raising my mouth for air,
shoulders shrug at might-have-beens
as hands pull back in prayer.
Hips, the source of power,
plunge me forward groundless
through backwash of flashback.
Beneath the broken surface,
a bygone shadow play
looked down on, goggle-eyed,
refracts in cobbles of light,
splashing bottom and side
with fluid parallels.
Across my face, bubbles
stream the exhaled distance.
I whip legs together
to trim resistance -
a trunked back number, skin deep
in rhythm of reckoning.
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