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      July 29, 2021Learning to SwimC.J. Farnsworth

      Image: “Sunline” by Annie Kuhn. “Learning to Swim” was written by C.J. Farnsworth for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, June 2021, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
      Mother fast-friended Daddy’s distant pool cousins
      So to be sure we could swim
      In their inground kidney with a corkscrew
      Slide we bit our tongues as mother jerked
      Orange floaties up to our throats
      And yanked our hair under latex blossoms
      We kicked and screamed and held
      Our breath with arms over our ears
      As they roared kick/jump/keep your mouth shut
      While Daddy’s-Mama’s-Brother’s-Girl
      Smoked menthols on a chaise
      In a gold bandeau drinking
      Gin after gin after gin
      Because, Mother said, once upon a time
      She was a beauty queen before
      She had a boy with sugar they called ‘Tink’
      And Katrina with gold skin
      And gold hair and gold ankle
      Bracelets (a trophy come to life)
      Who sometimes showed up
      With a long-haired/shirtless/round-shouldered boy
      To pick-up a few bucks
      While I snuck into the house
      To use the drowning-in-pink
      Bathroom that was inside
      Daddy’s-Mama’s-Brother’s-Girl’s bedroom
      To sit at her wicker vanity wondering
      Why the sun made my skin red not gold
      To clip on earrings that hung
      Like bunches of purple grapes
      Before sloshing out the sliding doors
      Connecting the bedroom to the slab patio
      Right beside the pool
      Convinced Daddy’s favorite Frank Sinatra’s
      Bedroom must be just like this
      Until Mother announced it was getting late
      Until we packed into our green Pontiac
      Until Mother, as heavy as the wet towels
      She piled in my arms
      Told me to put ’em up
      Until I pinned each towel
      Until all the corners touched

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the Editor, Timothy Green

      “Most of the poems this month, it seemed, in involved childhood memories triggered by Annie Kuhn’s watercolor, but I found ‘Learning to Swim’ to be the most engrossing. It’s always interesting to stroll through someone else’s nostalgia, but especially when the past is painted so vividly. The lack of punctuation captures the breathlessness of a young narrator, and the repetition at the end conveys an impressive range of emotions.”