Kid Larkin and the Psalm Formerly Known as ‘Swim’
by Laurie Klein
Watch me turn into a knife
the second my toes leave the pier
No baby oil greases my dive
Hear my running start
on slaprattle boards
loud as a drum roll
Today I’m a warrior niece
squinching one eye
as I double-dog-dare my shivery self
to slice through the surface
Humbubbles rise like helium
They soothe a tongue that gets snippy
and hurts Mom’s feelings
God must have thought of this
First the plunge then silvery ripplets
smoothing and smoothing over the cut
About the Poet
Laurie Klein is the author of Where the Sky Opens and Bodies of Water, Bodies of Flesh. A Pushcart nominee and winner of the Thomas Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred, she lives in the Pacific Northwest and blogs, monthly, at https://lauriekleinscribe.com/. Kid Larkin has a starring role in Klein’s forthcoming collection, House of 49 Doors: entries in a life (Poeima/Cascade 2024).
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Photo by form PxHere. Modified by Veronica McDonald.
