per Mom's request:

They Are Just Swimming

They are just swimming,

stroking perfectly in rhythm

like the beating of a steel drum.

Melodies spill through my mind.

A whistle blows, the rhythm changes,

like the beatin of a heart.

Thump-thump

Thump-thump

The butterfly is the most beautiful creature,

with a wingspan of 50 feet,

streaks, spots, black, red, yellow,

beautiful, I wish.

The bodies hoist themselves out of the pool,

walking forward. Will they notice

my body not sleek, finished, toned?

Diet? Healthkick?

Tofu--looks like styrofoam shredded

Rice cakes--styrofoam packed

No, just apples, oranges, fruit

like me, a fruitcake

loaded with sugar, multi-colored,

fake,

fruit

--the kind only Aunt Eunice

can find.

To the weightroom I follow.

Why call this a dry practice?

Dripping with sweat like the rain

pouring from me an empty sky,

Clear, Blue, so empty you can

see the ozone being made,

clearer than the water from a fresh

water spring.

Yet,

it rains bullfrogs.

Ribit.

Muscles ache with the pain not even

a mother in labore has ever

experienced.

Experience, I know nothing,

not even how to talk.

Kissing? Non-existent, wouldn't know

if it happened.

Do they know? Please say no.

Just smile and bare the perspiration

Look at all of them,

talking of Alice in Chains.

They don't know--me.

"Work," Coach screams like the

screaming of the tortured in

the castle of mid-evil times.

Oh, to be a princess with a crown

and innocence to be admired,

people granting your every wish.

Who would need

Love?

Why Love? Because without, love

there is no life

and

without life there is nothing.

Does that mean if there's something there?

Could it be life?

Love?

My footsteps to the shower echo loudly

like they could start an

avalanche. Then the snow would

be

pouring

down the sides of a mountain.

I would be

Crushed---in a shower stall at

the natatorium.

------Rachel Green '94

1rst Place, 12th

Trident Poetry Awards