(November 2024, Bright Flash Literary Review)

You Okay?

I’m in the pool and the lifeguard yells across the span of 10 lanes, “Hey, you okay?” as he taps his head several times, and I soon suspect he’s speaking to me because other swimmers are now looking my way and because I am stalled at the end of the pool, I realize now, holding my head, and I’ve likely been idle here for some time; then again he says, loud and distinct though my Speedo cap is vacuum-snug over my ears, “You okay? Maybe take it easier….” to which I wave and to prove nothing is amiss swim the entire lap in one breath, stifling a gasp at the end, imagining as I glide through those 25 meters what he would say if I told him that I’d been neither dizzy nor muscle sore but rather engaged in fervid conversation within myself about the new wood flooring I’d earlier decided on and paid for, a ruptured pipe having flooded my home days before, clear water ankle deep, though nothing of value lost, my piano especially spared, the water encroaching to within inches of its legs then strangely halting; she, the one I’d loved who’d shared my life and home, her spirit these months later still watching, doubtless behind it all: protecting the sacred yet forcing a cleanse, wanting for me a new start, new possibility, a fresh foundation, yes, this flooring, though I’m conflicted whether the replacement is really the right quality, tone, and finish, whether I shouldn’t have gone with the wider planks, the longer boards, the heftier price, and as I swing around to forge a return lap, sucking a lungful of air under the guard’s gaze then diving deep and wiggling myself forward near the bottom of the pool like a flat-fish-flounder, a small voice begins a singsong “water here, flood there, water water everywhere” and another carps, “You are not okay, oh no, you are surely not okay.”