The changeroom at Palm Beach ocean pool

has no warm showers. It takes two hot water bottles

to pink my feet after ten laps of freestyle.

Beyond the pool wall, a pied cormorant dives for fish.
Casting on, I loop blue yarn around a knitting needle

then tie a knot. Slide the right needle through the loop

on the left needle, wind the yarn around again.

Slip the new stitch onto the right needle. Repeat, repeat.
I am not athletic but I dive from the ledge of the pool,

whipstitch my way through the swell until I reach Black Rock.

It’s best to wear a wetsuit, ocean flippers and a neoprene cap.

Hot water bottles keep warm longer if you knit them jackets.
There’s a ferry to Ettalong. It takes you past Mackerel Beach

through Broken Bay, skirts the green wildness of Lion Island.

The windiest month is August but even in July squalls buffet

the boat, purl white caps across the drowned valley.
My mother’s friend Joan has glimpses of Pittwater

glittering through her kitchen window. We drink tea

from a pot in a striped cosy. I tell her about Mum.

Joan writes to her on notepaper embossed with shells.
The furthest I ever swam was 100 laps in an Olympic pool.

My mind looped memories, knitted difficult thoughts

into a shapeless garment. Two hot showers to stop

my legs shaking. Fingers as wrinkled as ribbed sand.
Once I tried to knit a V-neck into a round neck jumper.

It puckered and gaped with holes like mouths

of hungry fish. But stitches can be undone and remade.

Needles click and count the rhythm of repair.
This morning, the pied cormorant returned in flight,

looping and diving to spear the ocean. Repeat, repeat.

A lull drops the bird like a slipped stitch into the waves.

It rises, silver shimmering in its beak.