We drive to the beach
the day you’re released
from the hospital,
the pills once afloat in your glass
currently a memory
taken by tides;
and I suggest a brief, brisk swim
in cleansing waves,
to wash the stress
from your battered mind,
and you strip-down rather hastily,
splash about as a child might,
as you did when you were a girl,
and I lose sight of you
in a panic of thirty seconds,
as you submerge your head
and hold your breath
for a protracted half-a-minute,
attempting to touch
that part of yourself
where the air cannot reach
nor light tell the world
what you’ve hid.
Andreas Gripp
RF Image