Breaking out of my chest, this heart—
We have taken her swimming,
her two white parents.
The young woman standing and chatting
with two men in a truck
does not smile when we walk past
with our girl, tender and wet
from the pool—
You’re so mean! comes the high voice
of the woman, laughing
with the men as we stoop to our car.
The pool has a rough
and nubbly concrete border
that looks like it might flake.
But she loves the water—
under her armpits, or with
one big hand on her back
and one on her stomach,
we pull her through it
balancing the weight
of her body, guiding it
as her strong legs kick and kick.
Her hands clutch out
from her floating arms
like there’s something out in the water
to clutch back.
It is hard—
when I lift her to the rim of the pool
so she can learn to cling to it—
hard
to keep her from slipping below
the line—
Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, Lisa Williams now lives and teaches in Danville, Kentucky. She has published three books of poems: The Hammered Dulcimer (1998); Woman Reading to the Sea (2008) and Gazelle in the House (2014). A recipient of the Barnard Women Poets Prize and the May Swenson Poetry Award, she is series editor for the University Press of Kentucky New Poetry and Prose Series, and a professor at Centre College.
(c) 2020 Lisa Williams