Ways in

or out

Hi Friends,

Here’s a poem.

The Ramp Into And The Abrupt Eviction Out Of Waters

There must be a way into this
that is less abrupt than this

something more like the
kiddie pool entry at the

YMCA, with its little fake
beach that eases you in.

You could wheel a wheelchair
into the pool there.

I’ve witnessed infants
in puffed up diapers

and life jackets sitting on the cusp
of the water splashing with

their sausage limbs. Giggles
ricocheting off the hard walls

in a cacophony of reverb
that pressures my cochlea.

And I remember that 
that those infants were, 

ever so recently,
evicted from their

warm, dark, watery homes 
and blasted out into the light of 

this place, not the YMCA, 
but, just, all of this.

How overwhelming
that experience must have been,

to have been so recently
thrusted, pushed, popped out.

Yet there they sit, 
in puddled lumps

under recovering mothers
and sleep strained fathers,

making, of all possible sounds,
laughter.

In wordy wordiness,

Walter