Breaking out of my chest, this heart—

We have taken her swimming,

her two white parents. 

The young woman standing and chatting

with two men in a truck

does not smile when we walk past

with our girl, tender and wet

from the pool— 

You’re so mean! comes the high voice

of the woman, laughing

with the men as we stoop to our car. 

The pool has a rough

and nubbly concrete border

that looks like it might flake. 

But she loves the water—

under her armpits, or with

one big hand on her back

and one on her stomach,

we pull her through it

balancing the weight

of her body, guiding it

as her strong legs kick and kick. 

Her hands clutch out

from her floating arms

like there’s something out in the water

to clutch back. 

It is hard—

when I lift her to the rim of the pool

so she can learn to cling to it— 

hard

to keep her from slipping below

the line—

Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, Lisa Williams now lives and teaches in Danville, Kentucky. She has published three books of poems: The Hammered Dulcimer (1998); Woman Reading to the Sea (2008) and Gazelle in the House (2014). A recipient of the Barnard Women Poets Prize and the May Swenson Poetry Award, she is series editor for the University Press of Kentucky New Poetry and Prose Series, and a professor at Centre College.

(c) 2020 Lisa Williams

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Pastoral Mistake

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To the witnesses of the movement