hey girl/ so I keep taking Milo to the pool/ he’s on the swim team now/ level one/ he’s still learning to blow bubbles and float and breathe/ while he swims I swim/ freestyle and breaststroke and butterfly/ and/ I’m learning to breathe too/
my young mother becomes my dead mother
my new car becomes a clunker
my blond hair becomes gray,
my favorite sweater, a rag
my beloved becomes my enemy
my enemy, someone I can’t remember
My father in his red bathing trunks and bare feet,
his back glistening with suntan lotion liberally
applied by my mother, was not the same man who
came home tired from sitting at a desk all day
when what he wanted to do was move.
And god said, Let there be showers!—
and water fell on the bowed heads and shoulders
of people throughout the land, and sluiced
over breasts and bellies and buttocks,
can turn a white
dog black
a silhouette
on the horizon
sunlight unfolds
every new leaf
Jesus healed somebody in her church, she said.
The woman had been
wheel-chaired since forever
and a group of friends
surrounded her
and prayed real hard.