The Stranger in the Water

I went under and forgot myself,

went deep enough that nothing looked right.

My legs looked like somebody else's—

pale, wavering, wrong in the light.

I stood there and didn't recognize

the body I've been living in.

The water blurs everything. It tries

to be kind, but it's honest instead—

shows you what time has done,

what you've been avoiding with your head

turned away from mirrors for too long.

My legs are a stranger's legs.

The skin has changed. The shape is wrong.

The marks are new. Or the years drag

on and on and I'm finally noticing them.

I moved through the water and watched them move,

these unfamiliar things, these strangers, them—

keeping me up, keeping me in the groove

of standing in the shallow end

where I can still pretend that the blur

is mercy, not just time, not just trend,

not just the thing that makes me older, more unsure.

The sun hit the surface and scattered.

I couldn't see anything clear anymore.

Which was a relief. Which mattered

more than the truth. I stayed in the shore

of shallow water, watching legs

that belonged to someone else,

someone older, someone who begs

not to know herself.