Recreational Swimming

The water is warm, inviting me in
As it surely has done to a shockingly large
Stick insect, thrashing about at the
Granite edge like I must have been
When I was just a boy.
I remember, as the ripples tickle
My toes how my family used to go
Swimming. My mother would resign
Herself to the comfort of the deck chair
And I, tentative but eager
Would venture into the alien
Blueness with my father.
As I finish my tenth lap and am
Basking in the sunlight I recall how
My father taught me to swim.
I would ride on him to the deep
End, that adult place, full of mystery.
He would slip away all of a sudden,
Leaving me frightened and flailing, too breathless
Even to cry. My father had let me drown.
As I finish my twentieth lap I
Realise the insect is gone,
Fished up by some Indian worker.
And I think how, even though he
Came back before I slid under,
How I never looked at him
The same way again.