Betty, Poolside
She pleads with him to join her
in the water, at first lightly,
then with a rising insistence,
and he resists. She is unhappy.
It is always the same, the woman
calling the man to her, wanting
to float together in their skin,
and he on the edge of falling,
regaining footing, then diving in
when she is not looking. He is
on his own time. Betty’s beauty
strikes me and I wonder if he sees it
anymore the way the world does,
how any other man could not
say no. I learn they are married
one year now. She talks to me
in the Jacuzzi. I tell her
I left my husband because
he would not swim naked with me
in the dark in the pool behind
the fence at our house.
Baltimore Review, Volume VI, Number 2, 2002
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