Sundays
I lap the pool, water laps the edge, bodies streamlined, weightless, perfect, chanting ah-oh-mm in time with strokes, meditating in water. Steam gathers on glass, trickles downwards in miniature tributary systems, a picture of chaos. Four people sit in spa heat watching laps, legs, lycra, as if from an opera box. In the steam-room we breathe carefully noticing our lungs, nose, trachea. In, out, in, out, so simple, so it seems, until it stops. I ran, late, to see my mother's body washed down, laid out, dressed up, only the breath missing. In, out, in, out, so simple. I put my head to her chest anyway, a purple splash down one side of her face. I didn't expect her to look so much the same, so different. Lips move up and down in the steam, words have condensed in the air. Sorry? I was elsewhere. I said, makes you feel alive, doesn't it?