Pool

I swim with my eyes open.
Wide as the light
at the end of a cardboard tube.
I like the way the water feels
against the back of my skull,
acid-burning the still images.

I make out shapes in the pool,
pointillistic
silhouettes of other users,
who stay in their lanes marked out by
those chemically bleached ropes.
We reach for accidental contact.  

I press my lips together,
they only open above the surface,
just a snatch of breath,
then I am done.