Belting

Belting

All around there were the usual pre-breakfast echoes,
the odd shuffle
someone clearing a throat
blowing a nose.
There was one woman on the third floor balcony,
feet up on the railings balancing a morning cuppa,
trying to look as if she's not watching us frolic,
and another guy is sitting cross- legged
leafing through the paper,
his child grizzling a bit, beyond the screen door.
We floated and dived
pleased to be alone
in the cool of the pool.
The sound of it bolted through my underwater reverie
and shot me to the surface,
a pathetic pleading animal moan
reverberating pitifully off every wall
again and again
came the sickening dull beat
contact cry
then nothing
but the beat.

In that icy moment,
a wound was mercilessly opened
spewing the carbuncular pus
of festering impotence, hurt and rage.
I wonder which par t of that child was destroyed today.

Judith Morgan