|
The Badge
by Barbara F. Lefcowitz
In the 50 year old snapshot
I’ve almost reached the ladder’s top rung,
white strapless bathing cap exposing my ears,
but the Junior Red Cross Lifesaving badge
sewn to my suit where my right thigh
meets my first sprigs of pubic hair, the badge
I was so proud to earn, barely shows.
True, I’ve yet to save a single life
except my own from time to time,
one hand paddling, the other clasping my waist
just like the Handbook says, hauling myself
onto dry land long enough to slip back into water—
sometimes a clear green where I float freely,
more often muddy black, all my colors merged
when I tried to decide which would best suit
a particular day, but could not bear to save a few
for another time.
Yet my failure to save lives
might have some merit after all—
had I been there when Robert Schumann
jumped into the freezing Rhine
only to be saved, much to his despair,
by a passerby, I’d have spared him
two years of hell in a madhouse, a death
without music.
Or I could have saved that woman
hauled out of Chesapeake Bay
from a proper death the next day
locked in a hospital bed.
Still I’m proud of that badge.
Regret it doesn’t show more distinctly
in the photo, that I have to fill in its shape
in case I should forget all those holds
I once learned, those dives and swift strokes,
head above water so not to lose sight
of what needs to be saved,
in case I should forget as I near
the end of my last crawl
between a pool’s ropes.
|
