Poem for my fictive sisters

You are with me
when I lower myself from the ladder,
with sodden summer cotton washing along
behind my knees,
watching my own white arms in the green-
brown water
(Strange fruit? No,
strange fish...):

All still with me like on my skin, like in my skin—

I am swimming alone, to nowhere
to the accompaniment of
a thick six o'clock sun
and you as much
as the late light on the water
are with me, are with me