Marcus McCann
Landing, as in Water
Pleasure —
though pleasure’s not
the right word
not exactly —
in falling through air
with all our meat on us
like a man shlepping
two suitcases and, under each arm,
an extra pillow
tripping. How
could this be thrill?
Maybe you jumped,
maybe you were eased off a landing
or vaulted
as in from the final uptilted
bolted-fibreglass
finger of a water slide
to crash — I mean
to slide through some max
amount of air and plunk down
in water, ah
that soft catch
in gravity —
catch being not
at the surface
but five, six feet under.
And if off a bridge
then water like a blue-black cold
envelope
of glory, and if off a lakeside rope
then like a green-brown
promise grabbing you
with its hundred hands all over —
when I said “disorienting
entry into a lake” I underestimated,
it was cavalier —
even
in its chlorinated
variation, if off
a 10-metre pebbled
concrete plank,
from your raw feet
you spring,
humid under
-exchanged atmosphere
whizzing by your ear
and the whole parabola
of your body
now suddenly underwater
but willing itself to surface
in loving reversal —
physics, biology
instinct of your wet heart
wet lungs, your lips and eyes —
what a — no, not thrill —
relief
down and coming up.
Marcus McCann is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Shut Up Slow Down Let Go Breathe (Invisible, 2017), and ten poetry chapbooks. His work has been awarded the EJ Pratt Medal and the John Newlove Award. A former director of the Transgress Festival and the Naughty Thoughts Book Club, he is a part-owner of Glad Day Bookshop. @mmccnn