When light poured into me at the swimming pool
There was a sweetness to the day.
The horizon a blue harsh line.
I looked for stars but there were none.
For some reason they were always
invisible during the day. My heart was
filled with honey. I licked the edge
of that spoon clean. I thought mostly
about writing love poems to myself.
I thought about the history of my chronic illness.
The tartness of jam. My sadness
was obstinate. It did not want to go
away no matter how many lengths
of the pool I swam. Stroke for stroke
never reaching the end. I swam
until my hands felt like clay. My face
soft. I kept on saying to myself that
the death of the day was a myth. I make
it a habit to fold my dreams into myself.
My goals, the poetry I write. I worship this,
this light that is pouring into me now.
Abigail George briefly studied film at the Newtown Film and Television School in Johannesburg. She has been widely published from Australia, to Finland and Nigeria, to New Delhi, India, and Istanbul, Turkey. She’s a poet, and blogs at Goodreads here
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5174716.Abigail_George/blog