Not Under Water

He just kept telling me,

     “It’s supposed to be fun! ”

And its true, the winds were light and soothing, and the sky was blue like a samba, and drained into a happy white along the horizon. We were headed down Lakeshore drive, on a nice street. North side – no potholes.

But his voice hurt my ears like a trumpet.

On the lake I tried to hold sadness in fistfuls of lakewater. It was May and my calves cramped in the cold, two foot water.

     “We are living. Here! ”

When the bus passed a train stop, men in tatters, men with cardboard signs, sat on the ledgers of planter boxes, and I wasn’t here.

I was on Mission Street of San Francisco, where clouds stuck between the hills, so I was cold.

I let go of a fistful and picked up just a drop with my index finger and my thumb. I dropped it on the crown of my head. My hair was thin, so the drop felt bare on my skin.

     “Five, four, three, two, one!! ”

His head dropped under water, and I stared blankly at him. His hair looked like black dye dropped into a pitcher of lemonade. Or squid ink in pasta noodles. I saw that it had grown thin too. Every string of it told me.

     “Remember the cold? ”

Do I remember when I let my toenails grow too long like unkept leaves, and I stubbed my big toe on the bedpost that afternoon, and I walked outside in untied sneakers. They were loose, and the winter spread into the baggy sacks of air. That felt like ice in my capillaries. Before his face surfaced I saw he was still smiling. It felt okay though, with him underwater and me in the air. But he came back up.

     “You didn’t do it? It’s so nice! Try it! ”

The winds picked up. The way they always do once I get wet.

I stood there, with water up to my hips and the sun unclouded above. Inside I felt my temperature like mercury falling down my body. I wondered if the ice would form crystals, all the way to my brain, or if the sun would thaw me down to my chipped toes, and then warm me up like a soggy field on a steamy spring day.

Image: Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), David Hockney. 1972. Acrylic on canvas.