"Learning to Swim" by Elizabeth Bradfield

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend June 12, 2017   Learning to Swim   Elizabeth Bradfield

after Bob Hicok & Aracelis Girmay   Now forty-five, having outlasted some of myself, I must reflect: what if I hadn't been held by my mom in the YWCA basement pool, her white hands slick under   my almost-toddler armpits, her thumbs and fingers firm around my ribs (which is to say lungs), held gently as a liverwurst sandwich and pulled, kindly, under?   What if I hadn't been taught to trust water might safely erase me those years I longed to erase or at least abandon care of my disoriented, disdained body? I might have   drowned instead of just ebbed, never slid from given embankments into this other course.               Drift and abundance in what she offered. The wider, indifferent ocean of trade and dark passage not yet   mine to reckon. And so now, sharp tang of other waters known, I am afloat, skin- chilled, core-warm, aware of what lurks and grateful to trust and delight in our improbable buoyancy.            Copyright © 2017 Elizabeth Bradfield. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "I've been thinking a lot about how to express gratitude and still hold awareness of privilege in all its complexity. I am fortunate to have a love of and comfort in swimming and the sea thanks to my mom's efforts and the resources of the community where I grew up. Later, in the difficult years before I came out as queer, water was a necessary and life-saving escape. My adult awareness also holds a radically different association—the history of the Middle Passage of the slave trade. While reading Aracelis Girmay's The Black Maria and Bob Hicok's poems (including the one of this title), this poem found its voice." —Elizabeth Bradfield   Elizabeth Bradfield is the author of Once Removed (Persea Books, 2015). She teaches at Brandeis University and works as a naturalist on small ships.   Photo credit: Lisa Sette Poetry by Bradfield   Once Removed (Persea Books, 2015) "from The Black Maria" by Aracelis Girmay "Go Greyhound" by Bob Hicok "Summoning the Body That Is Mine When I Shut My Eyes" by Jenny Johnson Help Support Poem-a-Day   Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The series, which features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. If you enjoy Poem-a-Day, please consider making a donation to help make it possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038