Hotel Pool

Twelve? Thirteen? She arrives
in advance of her parents,

fat as I was thin, wrapped in a towel,
pattering to safety —

a bench where she sits obscured
before abandoning herself

to the indecency
of a walk towards water,

(though who’s to see? To care?
The retirees? Me with my puckered
stomach?)

My eyes meet hers,
hers dart away like fish;

this is not the place to say
You’ll be all right,

the body must become itself,
nothing to do but swim out, follow.