Now That I Have Learned How to Swim

By: Zoe Siobhan Howarth-Lowe

Let me learn

how to drown

in this water.

I have had enough of paddling,

being teased by foam and spray.

I want this water to seduce me,

take me into itself,

like a sinking boat.

Let this water splinter me,

fragment me

until I become a shoal of fish;

then drag me below,

down to where the ocean becomes heavy.

Here let it compress me,

squeeze my fragments together,

let it fill me with salt,

and widen the cracks in me

fatten them into wrinkles.

Now.

Let it bloat me

so that I rise again,

like sodden timber,

buoyant against the surface;

but face downwards.

Zoë is a Poet and Mum from Dukinfield. She has an MA in Poetry from Bath Spa University. Her work has appeared in Magma, Atrium, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Picaroon and The Black Light Engine Room amongst others.