Swimming

SWIMMING

If I drop this into the deep,    will you dive down and retrieve it for me?

My mother, at the community pool, a diadem    of false pearls in her hair, is up to her shoulders in water.

It depends on how.    You know I'd.

I will get lost. My face so    different from the day before.

My legs unrecognizably damaged.    It is all happening at an alarming rate:

loss. Somewhere between a lucid state    and one that is elsewhere,

I envision that my tendons    separate from the bones.

How will I tread water now?    Right below the surface is

a thought I've just dropped.    I don't even try. Mother:

everything is happening now    at an alarming rate. Why

couldn't I save myself    from becoming deteriorated,

from watching as my    mind was dragged down

beyond reach. I can still see it there,    but I don't know what it looks like—

does that make sense to you?    I would like to be able—

I'd grasp the frail band fallen    from your hair, if I weren't so sorry for myself.

Last night I forgot to make you dinner,    and when I looked over at the table

there you were with water and    a peanut butter sandwich.

I could still see you there,    but I couldn't tell what you looked like,

and you could tell that I was there,    watching you, but you couldn't

see me. Does that make sense    to anyone? I had never felt

so much anguish as I did then;    I used to know you, and you me,

but I understand it now: too much    of a good thing; too much life;

too much creation; hypoxia;    oversimplification. We are

becoming nothing; it is not    the other way around.

I have to let this thought go    or it will kill me, but

the thought will get away    either way and still kill me.

It will steal itself from me and steal    the feeling of the dear way I held onto it too.

Mother, I don't think we keep our crowns.    We don't even keep our heads.