she goes to the public swimming pool,
puts on a swimming cap and goggles
gets into the water, but isn’t able
to ask, or perhaps doesn’t believe.
So with her first stroke she says
“here I am”, then another stroke
and again “here I am”. Here I am
she says with every stroke. Here I am for you
who are water and chlorine
and these bodies like underwater swordsmen.
And afterwards, in the changing-room, in the end
she always feels joy –
almost as if they had granted her
something she hadn’t asked for
and didn’t know, will never know
what it was.
Translated by Anthony Molino