Swimming Lessons

Spring is coming.
I graduated in the spring.
                                    then the winter came
                                    with its fangs bared
                                    and spread like fingers.
I stare at it still
and watch the saliva of
despair drip from its jaws.

Spring is coming.
I was born in the spring
                                    My sister was born in an older summer
                                    (I was always too small to wear her clothes
my color never right to wear orange
hair too dark and skin to pail)
to wade out from under her blazing hot shadow.

instead I bury my face in the grass
and stain my skin
with envy.
Every summer  I
collapse in self-immolation--
a pile of dead leaves
come fall.

Spring is coming
the anniversary of not-enough…
           the grass grows higher
           than my head
and I swim in an ocean of cadavers
(that taunt with deep empty eye sockets)

clawing the waves away --
the undertow of memory crunching
like bone beneath
 
to create another season
of release.