We had been married for six or seven years



when my wife, standing in the kitchen one afternoon, told me



that she screams underwater when she swims—







that, in fact, she has been screaming for years



into the blue chlorinated water of the community pool



where she does laps every other day.







Buttering her toast, not as if she had been



concealing anything,



not as if I should consider myself







personally the cause of her screaming,



nor as if we should perform an act of therapy



right that minute on the kitchen table,







—casually, she told me,



and I could see her turn her square face up



to take a gulp of oxygen,







then down again into the cold wet mask of the unconscious.



For all I know, maybe everyone is screaming



as they go through life, silently,







politely keeping the big secret



that it is not all fun



to be ripped by the crooked beak







of something called psychology,



to be dipped down



again and again into time;







that the truest, most intimate



pleasure you can sometimes find



is the wet kiss







of your own pain.



There goes Kath, at one pm , to swim her twenty-two laps



back and forth in the community pool;







—what discipline she has!



Twenty-two laps like twenty-two pages,



that will never be read by anyone.





