amanda cunningham

Dying While Swimming

The other ones might try to tell the everyones
what beauty is and how it is every place,
just no place for everyone-
with they being they-
because everything in nothing
is what they want.
They want nothing within a body,

nothing of an ocean expecting swimming as a fluent response,
a native tongue on entry.
The bewildered herd denies an ocean;
it breathes too real, that icy throat spitting threats
holding whatever is dissolved of everything.

The other ones remember
bodies are always swimming
in our own flooded skin anyway.
Not one of everyone fails to ignore this-
when watching the other ones float past on backs-
not one of everyone knows.

Beauty is to die while swimming-
as wrinkled-smiles perfecting breast-strokes.
Arms cut a water weighted with hunger
delving deep into a cold mouthed urn
down until it is only ashes washed away.
Being powdered with everyone and the other ones too
is really nothing at all.
Dying while swimming-but not from drowning
-is an acceptance everyone can't know.