LEARNING TO SWIM

 by Peggy

Ducked by a big kid in the Fox Point

when I was 5,

screamy green

and terror

that I’d never find the air.

It took me forever to find the air.

First attempt,

the pool at Milwaukee Normal School.

all girls in bathing caps

going kick-kick with their paddleboards.

I never left the edge.

Mr.Kluge, the grey-hair-chested instructor,

told my mother how well I was doing.

At camp

in the beginners’end,

the warm brown lake

a Councillor with long honey hair a black breast-less bathing-suit.

Her name was woody.

Most of the kids didn’t like her

because she was quiet and strict.

Every day she held me

gently under my stomach

`til I could get the feel of floating alone.

Howie,

in charge of Camp craft,

kinky brown hair

and no makeup,

she had a cross-eyed adopted daughter

all the girls made fun of.

One evening during dessert,

image of my brother and sister at home

on the swings in sunlight,

Howie heard the first sob

and hurried me out of the dining hall,

took me for a cry

beside the rowboat dock.

During parents’ weekend,

the swimming demonstration,

Mom and Dad in the audience,

Mother said

I looked lovely in my bathing-suit,

Dad said my sidestroke

seemed very smooth.

by Peggy. G . Akhdi 199