In payment for those mornings at the mirror while, <br /> at her <br /> expense, I’d started my late learning in Applied <br /> <br />French Braids, for all <br /> the mornings afterward of Hush <br /> and Just stand still, <br /> <br />to make some small amends for every reg- <br /> iment- <br /> ed bathtime and short-shrifted goodnight kiss, <br /> <br />I did as I was told for once, <br /> gave up <br /> my map, let Emma lead us through the woods <br /> <br />“by instinct,” as the drunkard knew <br /> the natural <br /> prince. We had no towels, we had <br /> <br />no “bathing costumes,” as the children’s novels <br /> call them here, and I <br /> am summer’s dullest hand at un- <br /> <br />premeditated moves. But when <br /> the coppice of sheltering boxwood <br /> disclosed its path and posted <br /> <br />rules, our wonted bows to seemliness seemed <br /> poor excuse. <br /> The ladies in their lumpy variety lay <br /> <br />on their public half-acre of lawn, <br /> the water <br /> lay in dappled shade, while Emma <br /> <br />in her underwear and I <br /> in an ill- <br /> fitting borrowed suit availed us of <br /> <br />the breast stroke and a modified <br /> crawl. <br /> She’s eight now. She will rather <br /> <br />die than do this in a year or two <br /> and lobbies, <br /> even as we swim, to be allowed to cut <br /> <br />her hair. I do, dear girl, I will <br /> give up <br /> this honey-colored metric of augmented <br /> <br />thirds, but not (shall we climb <br /> on the raft <br /> for a while?) not yet.<br /><br />Linda Gregerson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/with-emma-at-the-ladies-only-swimming-pond-on-hampstead-heath/
