My Italian Farther Gives Birth

To call it swimming would be generous,
a use of manners rather than description.

It's a pulling of the waters behind me,
a pushing down through
what feels like a forming of air,
an abandonment of all that is above me,
bubbles of air release me from the earth that hugs
the pool,

Floating, washing my way across the surface,
remembering the rough hands cracked from welding,
that held me up in this unterrain.

This is what he taught me:
to swim, the power of your own arm to pull you through,
the dead man's float, "Let your body rest on the water, it's a
bed,” to dive down,”picture your body pointed into the water,"
to stay with it – the pleasure of it – water,
the pleasure of passing it on.

"That's it that's it.
Keep your toes pointed, kick, kick.
Okay I'm not holding,
You've been doing it without me for a while,"
wide delighted grin of deception,
Teaching.

I'm floating, skimming, staying in the pool,
immersed in this not him,
thinking not him,
not thinking,
just water moving me through,
moving through me.

"He's one of the gone people," my sister weeps on the phone.

I don't allow those kinds of words.
I dive, under
stay in the water,
he's under too.

The net of light catches me in
its refracted web
where definition blurs.

the fish me
the not air, not earthy creature
lives
in water like pregnancy,
you belong to it not it to you.