I never thought to ask why you never touched a toe

off the sand, never shimmied your soles on the slick of tiles

by the pool. Not in any back pocket of your history, did a boat

lurk. Dad, in the water, kept an eye while we wriggled

and arched for you like dolphins for boaters, any splash scooting

you back, your fingers tightening the hatstrings

under your chin. Forty years later, baking

in the sun, I told you of the swim teacher behind me––frozen

at the brink of the diving board––who shoved me off, slap

of the water lacing my thighs for weeks, blue closing over my head

in my dreams. I don’t remember, you said, unravelling

your own story, French-braided three quarters of a century.

 

***

 

On holiday at the beach, your father held you by the hand, waves sucking

at your ankles, when a commotion by the umbrellas bade him pull you back up

to the throng of people ringing the towels, the only sound the keening

of the gulls. No one stopped you from pushing through the circle to see a child

lying on a towel, her ruffled lavender swimsuit dripping, her ringlets

the color of apricots, her green eyes like sea glass until a kneeling woman

closed them. Others reached for the nearest thing to wrap around the girl

and lifted her, doll legs dangling, and so it was in your summer coat

they carried her away.