Learning to Swim

my little one is learning to swim* and yet there is something left: gills, fins. she is aquatic and terrestrial, still a thermophile, enmeshed in intestines. almost a fish, a bit a turtle, a bit a root. she may get hooked and stick to the ground, she may move into the belly and live among algae. with the umbilical cord around her wrists. the little one hopes that her desire to be with water is temporary, and later everything will get back to normal: the sky, the ground, four walls, ninety degrees in between. a window, a tree behind it, a window-sill, a table, a bed. the little one believes that the webbing between her fingers can be bitten, and that teeth will do. * poem by Ewa Świąc