The Lesson
Matthew Gellman
| poetry
Snakes in the tall grass, sprinklers ticking
the first time he forced my head underwater.
I counted seconds in the blue, planetary
flecks on the concrete wall underwater.
He pulled me up, then the game repeated
itself. He held me down underwater.
I learned to play tough and not tell him
to stop when he pushed me back underwater.
Hornets bobbed like a crowd in a stadium
above the pool. I was held underwater,
the sun an off-white flare of gardenia
petals arrowing through the water.
I watched them darting, imagined patterns:
stem, flower, stem. Underwater
I could barely see him as the sky blurred
behind us. It got darker underwater.
More, he said as I pulled up my trunks
and squinted. I went back underwater.
My voice still shakes. As if part of me
had been made from all that water.
Matthew Gellman‘s poems are featured in Poetry Northwest, Narrative Magazine, Sugar House Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from Columbia University and teaches at Hunter College.