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She crosses legs on the lounge chair,
rests the book on her belly.
She smoothes lotion
over arms and shoulders.
Funny how skin learns
pink instead of copper.
Men sleep in Speedos
on the other side of the pool.
She knows she's invisible
even to the man wheeling
a canvas cart, filling it with towels.
She contemplates the pool—
her pain goes deeper
than twelve feet under the board.
Axes have swung at her soul.

No Lifeguard on Duty,
Swim at Your Own Risk.

She treats the wounds
with fantasy and chocolate.
She hears newlyweds
giggling inside the Jacuzzi
and recalls the aftermath
of a bedspread
beside the picnic river.
The morning of stained glass promises
she believed, she really believed.
She slips on her glasses
and arrives at a Tuscan villa.
An Italian with a mustache
parachutes into the heroine's life.
She studies a sky too blue,
too deep to be real.