A Moment of Reprieve

For the length of four strokes and a breath
everything disappears.

The drought-stoked fires and unbreathable air.
Deathly earthquakes, floods and hurricanes.
Afghans dropping from departing planes.
The mutating virus fighting for its life just as we are for ours.

Is there enough air for all of us?

For four strokes,
one breath,
there is.

Merciful underwater
silence…

Bliss.

For the length of four strokes and a breath,
I am weightless.
Pain-less.

Limbs as lithe as a salamander,
Freed from the daily grind of
navigating gravity with no connective tissue—
bone on bone.

Beneath me, my nimble shadow self
dances with sparkling sun orbs
at the bottom of the pool.

I want her life.

Four strokes.
Breathe.

I emerge, dripping,
returning to the weight of my own body,
of the world—
just a little lighter.

I catch glimpses of my nimble shadow self
urging me back into flow.

Even here.

© Jenny Brav (August 2021)