recent observations, week 6.

no cameras allowed at the public pool.

There are no phones allowed in the public pool. No phones and no cameras and so I have no pictures failing to capture the way the five o’clock light glints off the turquoise water and makes the yellow wall glow golden.

I have only words to show the white spray splashes of teenaged boys batting at the water leaving sparkling beads gleaming on the surface of their braids, their shoulders, their perfect noses.

When my ten-year-old pulls themselves out of the water, their selkie hair is nearly black and slick down their back.

My four year-old leans their head backward and the water splays their hair like corn floss into a cheeky halo.

Orangey red polished toes are the best complement for green-blue water.

If I perch on the edge of the pool, on the aqua shelf that dips below the water, the concrete deck can’t card the bottom of my suit, can’t leave the imprint of its rutted surface on my bare skin.

When counting the seconds of a handstand there’s no need to mention that the legs are akimbo, that they barely breach the surface. Four seconds upside-down, ten times over, is enough.

I am not the only mother with a paperback book getting splashed, pages swelling in my hands as my children launch themselves into space and down again.

Children who’ve never known shellfire scream CANNONBALL, torpedo off cement pool walls, swim far past dinnertime.