A Place Beneath the Water

We drive to the beach

the day you’re released

from the hospital,

the pills 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