Refraction

My shins are broken by the pool's blue lip,

severed at the surface and shifted an inch.

I watch the way the light and the liquid slip,

giving the muscle a strange, rubbery pinch.

Those knees don't look like they belong to my frame,

they are pale, wobbling things, ancient and wide.

They have a different, aquatic sort of name

for the person I’m keeping inside.

I kick a foot and it moves through the slow,

heavy thickness of the chlorinated deep.

It’s a version of me I’m beginning to know

only in the moments I’m half-asleep.