Lifeguard
Dock
boards slick, slivered—
toes rising,
falling.
In the lake,
Mt. Jefferson and clouds
swollen with gray.
Thin air needles.
Water holds its shape.
From shore
their laughter
travels farther than the wind.
Their arms thicker.
My wrists bone-thin.
Noise
gathers behind me.
Body clenches.
Cold waits
without malice.
Below—
pale
among mud, weeds,
and rotted wood—
a stone.
I dive.
A moment of warmth
as nerves
shocked into life
scramble for purchase.
Cold.
I kick for the bottom.
The lake closes
around my ribs—
tightens—
a discipline.
In brown water
and shadows
flesh shrinks
to sinew—
mind narrows
to its work.
Under—
there is no happiness.
Only pulse.
Here—
breath holds.
I pull the rock
to me—
heavier
than it looked above.
I push from the bottom.
Legs working.
Arms locked.
Up—
the promise of breath.
Around—
the promise of pressure.
To quit
would be so easy.
The surface breaks.
Noise returns.
Legs pumping,
I lift the rock
above my head.
Hold it there—let
them see it—let
the weight fall
back to water.
Hands on the dock.
Wood under my chest.
I pull myself up,
hunch over
against the freezing wind.
Water streaming.
My mouth
finds its smile.
A towel around my shoulders.
I still enter cold water
more easily
than a room.
Curtis M. Revis Seubert lives in Japan, teaching interdisciplinary studies at the National Institute of Technology. Influenced by deconstructive philosophy, experimental fiction, and the indeterminacies of quantum physics, they prepare for the next natural disaster and writing in a small room crowded with books, a Playstation, and a sleeping bag.