Swan Dive

• Dear lover, you’re up
• on the five-metre springboard
• a slender man with the chest
• of an athlete, water streaming
• down thighs and fingers.
•  
• You step back, spring forward,
• fling your body airborne, arms
• outspread, each muscle
• roped and shining.
•  
• Suspended, you hang
• at the apex, a strange amalgam
• of instant and everlasting.
•  
• Revelations come to me.
• Isn’t this how angels
• hang, aerial
• and sculpted?
•  
• You tear the water’s surface
• – things are always tearing
• and coming together –
•  
• stroke to the side and hoist
• yourself out, the water
• in blushing rills down
• calves and shoulders, pooled
• at wrists and elbows.
•  
• The water in this pool is warm.
• You walk unshivering
• to jump again. I swim
•  
• on my back, watching
• your silhouette climb
• and descend.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash