Submariner

Submariner.

When I’m tearing up the pool

a one-lap wonder

& my goggles come loose

& the water rushes in

I feel like

a submariner

on the

Kursk.

*pic courtesy of pexels

Chlorine

Did you hear the possums last night? Up in the roof? she says.

Sorry, I say, I didn’t.

It sounded like a stampede. Like a wild party.

Why weren’t we invited? I chuckle. Nah, I was asleep.

I forgot, she says. You sleep deep.

I had a dream, I say.

Now you’re sounding like Martin Luther King. What was yours?

I was swimming laps in the pool a week before lock-down. I was the only one there. I came out feeling exhausted but exhilarated. That’s when I came in to see you.

You better have a shower then, she says.

Why’s that?

You smell of chlorine.

 

* pic Chrissie-Kremer from Unsplash

 

 

Anniversary

Do you realize it’s our anniversary today?

No, I didn’t.

Yes, we met a year ago today. In this pool.

Is that right?

Do you know something else?

What? She says.

We have never seen each other with clothes on.

You make it sound sexy. What shall we do to celebrate?

Swim, I suppose.

So off we go, me in my lane, she in hers, like we’ve been doing every Sunday for a year.

 

• do you remember where you spent your first anniversary?

 

At the Physio: A Humerus Poem

 

As soon as you walk in you see them paraded

along the walls

exemplars of Beauty and Strength:

Warnie unleashing a leg spinner,

Its eye on middle stump, Krygios rocketing another ball

past his opponent,

Thorpie diving into glory,

even one of cane growers in Queensland,

big blocky blokes in blue singlets

bringing in the harvest;

of Cathy Freeman at the Sydney Olympics.

But my humerus and hamstrings

were playing up.

On good days

I can do almost anything, but

on bad ones I can barely put one foot in front

of the other, bounce a ball

let alone slam it down centre court

at 200 kph

and the only way I could get in a pool is to fall in it.

Wimp

 

Too overcast.

Shadows on the ocean.

Clouds shifting.

Too much motion.

 

Anything could be anything.

Shadows or sharks.

Stingrays or box jelly-fish.

Too dark.

 

You just don’t know.

Cannot say.

No, sir. Not going in.

No swimming today.