In the Swimming Pool
By Gieedre Kazlauskaite Translated By Rimas Uzgiris
They would allow me in “the frog pond” at Palanga,
in order to teach me how to swim.
The teacher was strict:
you had to do “the little star” right away,
to swim with boards,
then dive to the bottom
to find the key.
I had no sense of how
I was doing there, on the water.
Much later, during my studies,
I was writing a paper on a phrase
found in Camus’ notebooks:
I must write in the same way
that I must swim: because my body
requires it.
My body in adolescence
was ready enough to swim
to suit the lake’s initiative.
My daughter’s body,
swimming free without repression,
would not pass muster in the kiddie pool.
The lakes of books I swam across
as if drowning – each time I gasped
more dramatically
when I reached the shore.
My daughter’s lettering, pressed
all over my documents, is almost
unwilled, resistent to doctrine,
training, and the coach’s whistle.
In the swimming pool,
we wave our separate flippers –
just one body and blood
in our sacramental chalice.
