[image error]Pexels.com" data-medium-file="https://catrussellwriter.wordpress.co..." data-large-file="https://catrussellwriter.wordpress.co..." src="https://catrussellwriter.wordpress.co..." alt="" class="wp-image-3239" style="aspect-ratio:0.666931321953156;width:508px;height:auto" />Photo by ShotPot on Pexels.comPOEM: “I spot a leg beside the pool”

propped against the bolted-down cobalt chair
used to lower swimmers into the pool’s
cool depths, its owner already midway
through a lap before I noticed he’d need
-ed assistance. I'd been too busy in
the backroom picking out orange foam fake-weights
whose buoyancy would work my arms. I’d eyed
the few in the center’s hot tub as they
chatted among brightly humming bubbles.
I’d watched the two red hands of the giant
stopwatch propped up against the room’s pale wall
speed away the seconds we spent in space
so empty between us that the gentle
swish of man-made waves echoed like a stream
within this concrete cave, each slight slap of
water on skin became a thunderclap.

Empty space framed each slim sound, echoed loud,
rebounding throughout the room, yet merely
feet away inclined that abandoned limb
--shoe still attached while its owner left it
behind, a better swimmer with one leg
than I was with two.

We were both buoyed
by blue water, sheltered by it, only
our upper torsos visible as we
bounced and swayed upon waves we made ourselves:
me shivering in my one-piece, he with
one piece missing,

and were it not for the
prosthesis standing beside that mounted
cobalt blue chair,
I never would have known.





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*inspired by a visit to the YMCA pool