Floating in a Pool on a Sunday in Winter

January 14, 1993

Floating in an old pool with my son, on back or belly, pivoting on water in circles and half-circles, legs and arms like jelly, amongst the choppy wavelets of others swimming on a Sunday in winter, is such a simple goodness. And like a wave, from time to time, without reason splashing, he grins at me his whitecap teeth, two of the front ones carried away by the night fairy leaving a soft pink rose gape of gum, and in that gummy effervescent grin is such love and trust and thrill of a new sensation that years after, I hope, grinning on that grin I will still be floating.