(for Lucy Honeychurch and wild swimming)
Sacred Lake
When you were asked about swimming, you said,
‘I bathed here too, ‘til I was found out…’ as if
untamed water was no place for a female, as though
nakedness wasn’t a woman’s uniform, they’d impose
until you were packaged with string and given over
to a man who couldn’t feel water, didn’t want to
Afterwards you’d learn to swim with and against it, shedding
boxes, paintings and buttons, floating a
line between naked and free, lying and
undoing the lying, un-painting
your cheek-chiselled mask, letting the
current move you to admission, as it does to me now
as I float on the Nene