Vision 1 by Ashley Bovan
Trinity
My boots struggle on the ice, step, step,
penguin walk, mold to steps, that already labored
this sidewalk, her arm clutching tightly
under my arm; then the fall
crack and bounce,
my puffy coat becoming sumo padding
like the outfits we donned at the Confirmation retreat.
Scott? That wasn’t the name I chose… Jude…
Let’s get you back up… My grandmother
(…lost causes, but more because I liked that Beatles’ song)
hovers pieta fashion over me, brushes the melt
and salt from my check,
Well, you aren’t Lott’s wife
that’s for sure, as she flicks a crystal skidding over the ice,
She stood straight as a pillar. We laugh and I sling
my backpack back over my shoulder to renew the trek,
Dropped one, her stroke frozen right hand hefts
my journal, Maybe, someday there’ll be
a poem about this? Maybe.
***
We are borne and baptized over and over again
at the Vernon Center Pool (named for the patron
of swimmers and, therefore, the only place
I am allowed to take lessons), heads rippling
through amniotic liquid, gasping at air
as if it was a first breath.
I cannot float,
cannot trust the silken waters to swaddle and
hold me aloft, cannot release this
weight to faith without flailing away,
and with my head tipped back, straight,
I can make out the shadows of birds alit
on the domed roof of the natatorium,
then I sink, cleave,
harrow to the bottom
as dozens of legs tread or dangle, chlorine burns
my panicked eyes wide and blinded by the churn
of kicked up tide and earthquake schisms from
the kids on the high dive, the first thing I see
as the water skin peels from my face –
sunlight through the roof, aureoles glow
on the heads of climbers ascending.
***
You should have picked Peter, my grandmother tells
me, bobbing her tea bag like a buoy, Oh, ye of little faith;
I just roll my eyes, hum na, na, na, nanana, na, nanana, na
in my head, focus on
a wisp of string ending at the Twinings tag,
wound around her fingers, which in another month will be rendered
useless, in a few years on, she, too,
will be gone, but I am
only twelve and do not grasp any of this. Yet, for some reason,
the vapors rising from her cup form angels against
the glass in the window and I know I will
never forget her saying, The reason
Peter couldn’t float, couldn’t walk
the water like Jesus was that he lacked
faith… in himself.
~ Scott Sanborn
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