Amplify LGBTQ+ Poets, Day 25

The Swimmer

by Christina Hutchins

Underwater I became a girl
with a young man’s ripe back
the muscles curled
around definite bones

But what you saw from above–
a blue-green daemon fraught with ripple
none of my lines a line–  I was broken
shuffled     yet I moved whole

It is me again     at the far side
surfacing     my face and shoulders
reassembled     solidity of my arms established
that settled years refunded

though where I stand waist-deep in the shallows
my hips     my thighs and feet     approximate
one of Picasso’s disarticulated women–
I cannot keep my unshackled forms still

from THE STRANGER DISSOLVES by Christina Hutchins. Copyright 2011 by Christina Hutchins. Published by Sixteen Rivers Press.

Most Poetry will post a poem by a LGBTQ+ poet, selected by our members, each day through the month of August.