Galaxies

I jump as high and as far as I can

I hang in the air

beneath the sun

while the water

waits

to catch me

I am nine-years-old

coiled springs inside me

fires sparked by lightning in my mind

 

My body blanches for half a moment as the water takes me

I look around in muffled silence

flotsam in the hazy blue

an underwater galaxy

in which I am the sun

 

Surfacing

I clamber out

I am forty-two-years-old

I am rusty springs and embers

a grateful planet in a much younger life

 

She splashes and giggles behind me

she

is the sun