poolpoem #4
all summer I swim with excreta bass perch pike excreta turtle frog snail excreta algae excreta bacteria excreta gull guano a white splotch on the water like latex paint with gently fraying edges cow pats from the pasture flushed into the lake in a storm and down at the beach little kid pee sure I peed too when I couldn’t hold it that warmth spreading around my small thighs and then swimming away hoping nobody’d notice they used to say fontana beach on lake geneva was fifty percent pee that’s maybe a little high but the point of all this is why am I offended when somebody spits in the chlorinated Y pool
© Jacqueline Jackson 2006
This article appears in Jun 1-7, 2006.
