If Movement Were a Language: Triptych – by Svetlana Sterlin
ISLAND | ISSUE 168
i.
no one would be as fluent as us / swimmers. gliding through what we know as air
density augmented. our shoulders feel / brunt of gym tiles Dad and i flipped
onto faded patchwork carpet. i still remember / miniature brick pattern of black
and grey. now hidden beneath those tiles / does our presence haunt them, woven
as it is / in those threads? does our sweat still simmer / underneath those rubber
squares? our backs still feel / blistered sky warming our ache.
ii.
sweat used to smell like chlorine to me. tears used to taste of it, too / Dad’s back
still aches with sudden weightlessness / redundant, his shoulders, too / been
months since he hunched / over a desk. since he left soaked shoes on pool deck
by the office door. now i return to earn / money he no longer can / and i find
everything still as we left it: stretch cords limp on their hooks / dried blood stains
just out of / water’s reach. crack in the tiles where / pool cover roller toppled
over. where Dad’s ache first pooled.
iii.
here is where his back cracked like the spine of a book / here is where i learn a
new language. if movement were that language / no one would be as fluent as
us / country hoppers, us / page flickers, us / pen wielders, us / keyboard masters,
us. tab and tab and / lines lap against the paper like pool water against the cracks.
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Image: Serena Repice Lentini - Unsplash
This poem appeared in Island 168 in 2023. Buy your print copy.