even in yr swimming pool /

our bodies moved in opposition
first, you’d torpedo (vertical)

limbs slippery and efficient

then clamber out with a shrug

and swollen pupils

just to do it all again

hipbones slicing through the blue!

as if water was invented to wait

on the other side of air:

god’s dependable crash pad

for man’s sickest tricks™
then, i’d expand (horizontal)

my spongy body

cloaked in chemicals,

palms upturned,

eyelids pink against the sun,

silently following

some women’s weekly recipe:

macerate for twelve minutes,

play-dead for twenty,

soak till extremities are thoroughly pruned
you said you loathed

school swimming lessons

(was it the unspoken ratio

of urine-to-chlorine,

or the vision of yr classmates swimming laps:

suddenly anonymous in their matching latex caps

and silver goggles,

thrashing towards you

like a squadron

of aquatic baby cyborgs?)
and one time I was told

not to let my ears touch water:

your thoughts might soften, escape

and clog the pool filter 

as if it were a crime

to renounce mind and muscle,

or dunk a sugar lump in a teacup

(at this you’d scoff

and spool yr legs into a cannonball

yr litany? yr prayer? a simple devil-may-care)
even in yr swimming pool /

these past lives sprawled between us