Leah Claire Kaminski
FLORIDA HIGH SCHOOL STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS, CLASS 3A, 1994
in between the coaches’ beds as their sun-creased bodies napped, in the canyon between beds on detergent-scented carpet, after morning heats where she swam fast but slow for the state and he swam fast for the state, after she swam 200 IM, 200 free, 100 free, 2 relays, & the whole thing so busy and without center, just fear, wet suits, & shaved limbs, caged mothers and their bones, after swimming as if she was without body, as if she was burning fear in a stomach and arms so smooth through water that they barely existed, there was one moment where she could have had a body that knew where it stood, that commanded armies of her, so many bodies of her to get up and take his hands out of her suit, where he was pressing too hard and it hurt and hurt mixed with fear till she thought it was lust, but the body she had burned till she thought maybe that was how it ended, and his tongue was thick flesh, and she became a body moving with no weight at all