Faces Underwater

all the lapswimmers. Their arms carve
holes in the H2O; their legs lack up bubbles

like a boat propellor. But their faces,
even better. . . . There’s the retired Captain

who’s had two heart attacks, goddammit,
and vowed to pummel his bulk up and down

one lane till he’s a welterweight. He’ll be
a specimen. Already his breath, expelled,

transforms his face, making it a silver mask
of exertion, hot-looking, demonic. . . .

His is the face one learns to hide, ambition
or fearface pure as an acetylene torch. . . .

And then the boy is forced to surface:
loud world, where laughter can be heard.