In my element

Just before the lifeguard calls
'clear the pool please'
the water is all mine,
rippling in its own rhythm
unbroken by crude splashes
and echoing shouts.
Diving under, I am home in it,
water in water, womb-warm, womb-wet,
softer than skin-on-skin.

The moon-white lights on the water's surface
transform to gold as they touch the tiles below
artless alchemy,
rippling the bottom of the pool with wheaten shivers
which chase each other, colliding and retreating
in ceaseless, heavenly harmonics.
Aqua, marbled with honey.
Swimming through sunlight.

Deeper now, religious-blue stretching onward
a passageway between the surface and the floor
invites into forever.

Like that childhood dream of flying
where toes push off the buoyant pavement
and you rise effortlessly, breasting the air.