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The Last Swim

September, October … one thing
you don’t know at the time is when
you’ve had your last swim: the weather
may hold, may keep nudging you in.

Only afterwards, sometimes days on,
it dawns on you that you’ve done:
just the thought of undressing outdoors,
exposing bare skin, makes you wince.

And that’s best, to have gone on swimming
easily to the end: your crawl
full of itself, and the future
no further than your folded towel.