the water never scared me but the boys

Jennifer Hambrick

had something about them I wasn’t allowed

to have. that summer I met a guy at the pool.

a friend knew someone who knew him so

they knew each other and so I knew him too.

my friend and I hung out at the pool a few days

in a row, laying out in bikinis on towels

and pretending not to care while we watched him

banter with some guys. he came over to us

now and then and knew when to leave

to make me want him to stay. there was

something in my mind back then about

the girls who met guys at the pool. they took

the musk of sweat and suntan oil and scant

clothing and full bodies and budding desire

with them beyond the chain-link fence

to parked cars, to the dark under bleachers,

to basement rec rooms when their parents

weren’t home. in my mind they let those guys

do all kinds of things to them lying down

on the floor with the dark all over them

and ending up pregnant and dropping out

of school and working at the shop-n-save

and chain smoking their lives away. I wasn’t afraid

of drowning, probably because of the lifeguards.

he walked me home from the pool one day,

down the long street, cutting through the church

yard, my hair half wet and frizzed and bleached

from sun and chlorine. now I know he hid

his nerves behind a mask of raw abandon

and his hands rushed for my hips and a crackle

of fear surged inside when his mouth found mine

and that day as the sun burned us I let him do it.