Extract:<\/p>\n
Bright orange armbands against a turquoise swimsuit. Body as small as water is large. Arm against waist, striking out into open water. After a while, everything slackens: muscle, limbs, thought. There is only water. Time carries me gently, until I realise that the arm, the one keeping me safe, has gone. I turn to see my father at the shore, and realise I have been swimming. This was my first swim. I recall it in the closing poem of the collection, \u2018The Dart\u2019:<\/p>\n
but however quick the split between worlds opens up<\/p>\n
however fast plates move beneath water breaks below planet<\/p>\n
heaves above<\/p>\n
however soon the body is called back into building into posture<\/p>\n
into slump<\/p>\n
there is a glimpse of an orange armband and an arm missing<\/p>\n
from a waist that turned to see him watch as I pulled away<\/p>\n
for the first time unaided into wildness,<\/p>\n
unable to stand but able to swim (a river is not a river without him).<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t intended for this collection of swimming poems to feature my father, or be overtly confessional, but the water brings many things to the surface.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n