30
element: water
by Sonia Greenfield
In Latin it’s cella natatoria,
this sultry room where
chlorine needles my nose,
this room where my son
but swims like a wounded
bear, where he performs
drowning. This boy is unlike
pale dowagers tucked
ladies who enter re-born
when they cut through blue
It’s easy to read emergence
from immersion, becoming
of this space. It’s uneasy
to see a birth unmade.
has been called off, divers
un-slicked from wetsuits
pond cordoned off, a missing
boy found. The infant class
while goggles imprint ovals
(cont.)