Bathing Suit

A required layer between water and skin,

though colorful,

has but one modest hope--

to apply decorum to persistent nakedness.

No power of its own,

it lives from adventures of else.

Lifeless seams stretch and subside,

bulge and shrink,

only as oxygenation rages,

muscles contract,

blood surges,

skin flexes

to move a body forward

through water rushing past

folding then folding over itself.

This luckless fabric

of reds and yellows,

or greens and blues,

tolerating subservience,

subsists as a graceless spectator

of insignificant proportion.

First published by BlueHouse Journal Nov. 14, 2020