Night Swimming

My Mom steamrolls up and down the length of the pool, counting laps. Put her in the water and she is swift and efficient in her calorie burning.

I took swimming lessons when I was little. I know how to do the crawl and the breast stroke, the back stroke and the apple-picking side stroke. I don't use them much.

I lay sprawled out in my back float, counting stars. I watch the Big Dipper blink back at me, just as he did from my roof in Brooklyn last weekend, just as he's done for years from a variety of longitudes and latitudes. My ears, submerged, track the glurps and gurgles of the pipes.

Weightlessness is not overrated.