Poetry

Today is for Swimming

Kristen Roberts

At dawn she wakes to the skip and splatter of rain; today, she decides, is for swimming. Passing cars slice the water on the road, as she walks, wet, with the rhythm of the rain to the beach, to the rockpool, to the pale, flat rocks which grey, in the summer, like seals. She ballet-steps over the calves and the cows and lunges into the tepid pool, her towel, now sodden, in her wake. She swims for a while with a fervour, with the sharp, neat strokes of a woman whose body’s still her own and then she floats, her arms adrift and her legs astray. She lets the rain read her face like Braille, like a lover, browsing, and wonders what it will learn. Will it see she can count her tomorrows, or that she chooses to live her todays?