Slowest Member on the Junior Varsity

The first to arrive when the sleepy-eyed coach

grunts good morning and undoes the rusty lock,

he starts each day facing the water alone—

the shimmering skin over the cold deep end

holding the calm of sunrise before his mind

bellows start. He plunges in to tame the water

before the water tames him back—cutting meat

and treading at the Y each weekend only keeping

the pounds in place. On the deck stool with

his fake leg stretched before him, the coach rasps

his creeds from the Navy. There’s standing tough

and moving tough, he tells them. Whichever one’s

tougher, that’s what you do. On the cold mornings,

the slowest tries standing tough, his feet buckled

in at the water’s edge and every still joint its own

heady fix. When he moves, he moves to reach

the finish line. The team is mired in last, not quailing

from the season’s end the only victory left. All around,

hungry, he eyes the greater meets: the varsity team

that shreds the water twice as fast, the seniors’ cars

and flaunted car keys. Is every test decided

by the one before? Do the mind, the joints ever forget?

He stares down the water, his body cold and primed

for the tournament, finals, anything assigned.

Source: The First Thing Mastered (Tebot Bach, 2013)