Amelia Kirkness
Hydroslide revelations
At age 7 I found god
in the bottom of the swimming pool
while playing mermaids,
letting our hair become tentacled, princesslike,
holding our breaths in the blue,
the heaven of the pressure.
Nobody’s parents went to church but this was close enough,
chasing the older girls up the steps, wet feet sliding,
admiring the bored perfection of the lifeguard
in her mirrored aviators, inviting us
to reflect until our turn on the slide.
There was a religion to it,
dissociating inwards,
the brave choosing
to descend backwards,
watching the light curve away into the dark.
In the black cosmic gloss of the tunnel, a letting go
of raw knees from parched grass,
the sunburnt noses, the ice-cream-stained tops
abandoned to the bottom of the dolphin-printed
swim bags for now, all the sleepover night feuds
dissolving like the chemicals in the water.
Smooth and at one with all that is artificial.
Then the ejection,
face first into turbulent waves of a small pool
perhaps the ass of the stranger in front of you,
a baptism with chlorine-raw sinuses,
blinking like a newborn in the light
under pink goggles.
Amelia Kirkness is a Christchurch writer and student. You can find her work in Write On magazine, Catalyst and ReDraft anthologies, and by hacking into her Google Drive, though she’s not sure you'd want to. She is trying her best.