Walden

Last night I swam, fully clothed, in the estival springs of Walden Pond. The water was smooth and relented easily when my callused feet interrupted its surface. My lungs swollen, I stepped myself down, into the clean waters, my denim hems rustling soundlessly on the pebble-studded bottom. I kicked up, mermaid-style, muted gales billowing my pant legs and inflating my t-shirt.

I fan my arms, and concentric ripples appear, cresting each in a soft anticlimax, my unassuming form squarely and soundly their epicenter. I raise my face; the sun assaults my tender eyes, and I slide them leniently closed. A boat motors purposely by, but I lie still, unthreatened.

At last, whole.