On my way home, I stop at Number Ten Pond. The water temperature is at that sweet spot, exactly perfect — and how often do you touch perfect? — and I wade right in. A woman stands in the pond, two children splashing around her. She laughs when the minnows bite her toes.

I swim far. In the pond’s center, I float on my back. With my eyes closed, my mind’s eye turns red, with blood or sunlight, who knows, and I’m no longer sure which way is up or down, water or sky. I’m distant enough from shore that only the loon call reaches me. By the summer’s end, these swims will add up to an invisible chain of experience: of water and weather, of whatever language drifts my way. July here, just a handful of fleeting days.

"Everything Is Made Of Labor"
Farnaz Fatemi

The inchworm’s trajectory:
pulse of impulse. The worm
is tender. It won’t live
long. Its green glows.
It found a place to go.
Arrange us with meaning,
the words plead. Find the thread
through the dark.