Carol BrendselSwimming In The Tidewater
I was eleven, nobody special,
but I had learned to stroke water.
Far out to a sandbar I had waded,
alone, away from other swimmers,
My mother and baby brothers
a blur on the shore.I stood and felt the waves suck at my feet,
the foundation pull away
toward some other beach.
The sun poured over me.I dived, as if fevered,
through the surface of warm, salty skin
to the cool depth with such force,
my ears roared.I knew neither the fury within me,
nor the surge of the ocean, only
that I wanted that sensate, mysterious rush,
to disappear into something great.
Bio:
Carol Brendsel recently moved to the upper Mimbres River Valley, a short way from the Continental Divide in southwestern New Mexico, but a long way from Santa Cruz, California, where she lived thirty-three years. She is a mother, a nurse, a midwife, and a poet at work on her first collection. "Swimming In The Tidewater" is forthcoming in The Anthology of Monterey Bay Poets.
