THOSE SUMMER SUNDAYS

Sundays my father would join us
at the club pool, his skin
white and delicate as cigarette paper

on the one day he took
from the women who lined
his waiting room

month after month.
I waited at the shallow end.
He rose from the board

and dropped
straight as a table knife
without a splash. Always

the women stared, women
from whose bodies he had pulled
daughters, released sons.

And always
he would not surface
until he had maneuvered through the depths

to the place where I stood. Giddy, I would close
my eyes as he hoisted me
from the flawless water

on his shoulders, the two of us
one thing, perfect and tall.
I did not know then

of the sometimes dangerous
entrances of men, how some will lift
what others slowly drown.

By Andrea Hollander Budy


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