Swimming

18 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW INARA CEDRINS SWIMMING Nude, you are a cube, a packed square hitting the water. I am a line in space, a line on a plane. To avoid the weed bottom I go in sidelong; you bellyflop. We are definite as a Mondrian painting. In theory, I think, two entities can only share space and time if they have nothing in common. I float watching water ring around my breasts. I tried to explain that when you tickled my feet, or now when I rolled over effortlessly, it felt like having a mermaid's tail. But to you that only symbolized again my impenetrability: not beauty. Water fills my ears and deafens me. I lose track of you until the curved wake of your swimming comes to me; like sound passing through a barrier smoothly, it rocks me. ...