No Swimming Here by Lynn White (I AM STILL WAITING Series)

No Swimming Here
by Lynn White

I don’t even miss it anymore.
Well, I was never good at it,
could never manage a crawl,
just a slow breaststroke,
or backstroke
before my hair grew long
and needed protection
from the chlorine.
But I did go twice a week
regularly,
as regular as clockwork,
as regularly as religious people
went to church on Sundays.
So it left a gap,
an absence
at first.

Then there were the friends,
seen now only in passing
in the street
or at the Co-op
or in writing,
heard only on the telephone
not in the echoey pool
or drowned out in the showers.
So there was an absence.
There is an absence.
All is quiet there now
and so I am still waiting.
We are all waiting
still
waiting.

PHOTO: Pool, Night by Elina Brotherus (2011).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: The school in this small town has a swimming pool open to the public. The swimming club for “over 60s” has many enthusiastic members. As of this writing, we are still waiting for the pool to reopen after the pandemic.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy, and reality. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud “War Poetry for Today” competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications, including Apogee, Firewords, Capsule Stories, Gyroscope Review, and So It Goes. Find Lynn at lynnwhitepoetry.blogspot.com and on Facebook.