pool

She had not been radiated enough. One of her breasts had cancers flashing like neon, and was about to get snipped off.

We knew this. She was handling it with an edible. I was handling it with a baby box of wine of poor quality. And with water. We were handling it with additional water.

I had been dunked as an infant, and then carted to swimming lessons for years, until I could pick cherries on my side, cartoon-character way back backstroke, dutifully crawl, and breaststroke with big froggy energy across various stretches of chlorinated American fields of leisure water (pools).

She had been whisked out of a war into a refugee camp, then on to a makeshift family and Americanism, Tom Petty, the Virgin Mary, and the comet tail of Gloria Steinem.

I had also met Tom Petty, but much later, in the “Mary Jane” era, and the Virgin Mary had been more of a supporting player for me, always sidelined with that “no statue worship” sign hanging around her head.

Another time:

In black clothes, picking away at my hangnails, at a funeral. The honoree was a swimmer; lo, how he swam! Though with the height of him, he began well ahead of others. “He drove all the way up here to teach the little kids when I had to be out of town,” his pal said. “He loved them.”

How dry it is to be deceased.

Once it’s gone, it’s all gone.

How splashy to be alive.

Post-funeral meal: we sit while a woman from India brings us naan, korma, teas, the name of her home town, and its patron: “I prayed to Vishnu once, and it worked. He’s good!”

“Maybe we’ll try it,” we said, post-funeral people, happy to hear from someone so alive. Try Vishnu. What’s he up to?

Was there a bidet in the bathroom there?

Yes, I had sips of tea, but when I got home I was thirsty.

Image: Brickmakers getting water from a pool, tomb of Rekhmire, ca. 1479-1425 BCE, Metropolitan Museum of Art.