The Long Swim
The pool’s pure Hockney – cool,
sapphire & super-real.
Virginia creeper blots the retaining wall.
Roses and walnuts spill from thorny burrs
and a great leaf-spattered tree.
A cat stretches in the grass, tumbles into its fur,
I’d like to go on filling space like that.
Be a butterfly. A bird.
An acrobat.
But there are lengths to kill
between one hard edge and the other
Back and forward, breaststroke, crawl.
Sally Festing’s Salaams was published by Happenstance; Font and Doors Opening (Oversteps) came out in 2015. A fifth collection will be published next year. Her writings include radio plays, nonfiction, journalism and Penguin Biographies (www.sallyfesting.