It’s no Walden, but it’s cool
and the day is dust hot,
and so I ask my younger self
if she wants to go swimming,
and she grabs the hand of my older self,
and drags her to the pond.
My older self was, perhaps,
more rhetorical than sincere
when she suggested the swim,
but the younger self has already
kicked off her shoes and shrugged
out of her dress. The swallows
wheel and sweep overhead
and all along the pond’s edge
the dragonflies darn through the reeds.
What is it in us that never forgets
how to jump in, no matter
how cold, no matter who’s watching,
no matter what else
we’re supposed to do?
That is the part that is already wet
and otter slick as the older part of me
stands at the edge, still dressed,
in awe of that girl, how she
glitters in the sun, how
through chattering teeth,
she laughs, how she looks
so almost familiar.
