We try to swim nude, but the water pulls our clothes to the surface.
Bills, babies, and all those things we have collected,
float to the top to repossess us.
Once we believed we possessed them.
We try to swim backwards, but our bones protest,
and our eyesight isn't what it used to be, so we crash against
the orange floats depicting where it is safe to swim.
We are not interested in floating or playing dead.
I see in your face that you are ready for the rapids
but the water is full of obligations & we both know it will be
hard work to reach shore.
We try to swim nude, but I can barely keep an entwine
with your fingers.
When we lose touch, my feet feel through the slippery soil.
On shore, our old dog has fallen.
I wade in for a rescue on hard ground.
This was evocative of several different emotions. I found "I see in your face that you are ready for the rapids
but the water is full of obligations & we both know it will be hard work to reach shore." to be particularly emotional. I feel you did a very good job of expressing emotion and portraying different aspects of life with very descriptive phrases.
Those descriptive phrases are unusual in this sort of work. People tend to lean heavily on metaphor and simile to create the same feelings you accomplished with simple description and phraseology.
What I like about this poem - is its ambiguosity.
I thought this is about looking in the same direction,
the rules are the same and they decorated it with different details. wonderful, you are always a suprise. always excellent.
The relationship translates well using water....swimming.....floating.....keeping heads above water...riptides. :-)
For some reason this line produces an abrupt change in focus (literally and figuratively) and is incredibly effective in turning what could have been a "water rescue" into something else entirely:
http://youtu.be/25XE-BHGvWI
http://youtu.be/B2klgDKMUq0
I live in the mountains of Southwest Virginia. Although my passion is poetry, I recently published a novel called, Women of the Round Tabl.. more..