Lifeguard
She perches high on the stand, gleaming whistle
dangling, on her suit a dutiful,
faded red cross. Mine her only life
to guard, she does for a while watch
the middle-aged woman who has nothing better
to do than swim laps in the Y's indoor pool
on a late Friday afternoon. I am slow,
though, boring, length after predictable
length of breaststroke or the duller lap
of elementary backstroke perfectly
executed within the taut confines
of the brightly buoyed lane. So she abandons me
to study split-ends, hangnail, wristwatch,
until—the body of the whistle cupped
loosely in her palm—her head nods toward
shallow dreams. I've never felt so safe in my life,
making flawless, practiced turns, pushing, invisible
to reenter my own wake, reverse it.
Copyright Credit: Claudia Emerson, "Lifeguard" from Secure the Shadow. Copyright © 2012 by Claudia Emerson. Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press.
Source: Secure the Shadow (Louisiana State University Press, 2012)