swimming lessons

It rained the whole fortnight,
so my father got it into his head to teach me something useful,
like how to stretch my body out to crawl from doggy paddle,
how to cleave then palm the water, how to skim,
how to drive from the shoulder, the chest, the diaphragm,
how to breathe, regular, on the rim of each third stroke,
and above all how to keep going, to endure the cold,
to enjoy the loneliness, to think of other things besides the swim.

Some days we skiffed the surf with pebbles,
my father’s explanations muffled in the hood of a new anorak.
But the gist of his lesson was this: how flat stones are best,
how they have lift, carry on beyond the dunk of lesser ones.

On the one good day, we picnicked on the beach,
my father spoke of how a tanker ran aground on Pollard’s Rock,
how each successive tide helped retch its guts for miles,
how still, a crude sludge seeps up to meet the press of skin.
I see my mother, how she mops the Torrey Canyon from her skirt,
how her lilac handkerchief isn’t up to the task.
I hear him say how oil smothered kelp beds,
and the gills of fish were sealed like blackened fingernails.

Published in the night Trotsky came to stay