Elizabeth Bishop at the West Side YMCA

A.M. Goodhart

Just after water aerobics class

before free swim the locker room

door is as heavy as a body

swollen in the humid air and when

I finally get it open it is like turning

a rock over to find an alien ecosystem

generous legs cascading over thin benches

breasts as long as waterfalls someone drying

their hair in the mirror like Venus de Milo

women leaning over the clasps on their bras

and spinning them around like robots twirling

on their torsos, straps snapping into place

with a towel like a crown on her head

Elizabeth Bishop walks towards me with

the preponderance of a parade Marshall

she takes me by the hand and leads me

to the changing room, slides the curtain

in place. She doesn’t tell me that I am one of them

and as I unpack my body and rearrange it into a swimsuit

we both know that it’s true.