Lengths

Lengths

It occurs to me from time to time

That there must be a better way

My head emerging from the water

Grasping for the air

Gasping, lungs hurting

Breathless from the effort

Between tired strokes

Sometimes near choking

In the careless back-wash bow-wave

Of be-spectacled dolphins beside me

Speeding through the swell

In their effortless freestyle

And that there are easier means

Than this daily immersion

In stinging chlorine spray

To drag an ungainly body

Through the crash and splash

Beyond the pain barrier

Of an aching, heaving chest

And exhausted arms and legs

Soon losing their co-ordination

And any sense of rhythm

Between the lines of lanes

And ability to remain

On the straight and narrow

And that perhaps it’s all so… pointless

This swimming end to end

The relentless back and forth

Of many measured lengths

To ignore the overwhelming urge

To simply stop and float awhile

Then sink slowly to the bottom

Amid the rising bubbles

To inspect the detail

And the regular pattern

Picked out in white and blue tiles

Whilst other bathers carry on regardless

And a lifeguard looks on in horror

At the body of a drowning man

Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2015