butterfly stroke  

pantomime wings 
in the cement bowl
i whittle my legs into 
the thin stalks that birds use
i move my arms as if to swim
the breast stroke 
in the pool by 
the train tracks
emptied 
for winter

some monster 
traveling across bone
clacking past

as i pretend there's
water in the pool & the ghosts
here give me swim lessons

they say 
this is what
the water here 
used to smell like
they say 
now back stroke 

& i lay face-up 
on the hard floor
as grey water starts 
to trickle from a cloud above 
an overcast 
pitcher hovering

ready to fill up the basin 
i am ready to be 
a swimmer again

i took lessons
as a little girl & the pool
was ripe blue & the swim instructor 
would tell me the number 
of laps to swim by holding 
up his fingers

his fingers 
turning webbed 
& orange-- a duck
a duck taught me how 
to swim not in a pool
but in a lake 

the difference between
a pool & a like is probably
the placement of ghosts

lakes get ghosts 
on the banks & pools are
filled with ghosts 
regardless of water

i swim here because 
someone has to come take up
space in an empty pool 
because i have been haunted
by the rinds of fruit

because emptiness requires
a kind of swimming

i have been swimming 
so much lately 
a breaststroke across
the kitchen free style down
the street butterfly stroke
in the garden that is also
full of ghost water

so i came here to bring
all that swimming
get the swimming out of my body
& tell the ghosts here that
the water they know is real
just like the grey water
is real & the water i move
aside with my hands 

& the water that makes 
up my body-- i wonder 
if i will go empty
like the pool & if a girl
will find me & lay down
& take up space &
love the ghosts in me
till i fill with grey rain