The Consolation Splash in Synchronized Swimming
Upshot: the toss up, the tinkle, the toodleloo (what the feet do):
(I had to.) You need something to pass through—a continuous 
pool. The splash bombards our descent with kaleidoscopic patterns 
in opal—the white embalms with the blue—but is it jewel enough 
for you if you can’t hold it? I can do the same as you. I can do 
the same as you. (Smolder underwater.) Held breath is my only 
bravery. I suck it like a candy while—next in kin to our skin (we are 
wet within)—the water makes a rag of itself, wipes upward, wipes 
out, wanton with a suffocating sameness. Ebb and no, ebb and no
disembodied flow, the splash tackles air, tickles, dots, attacks in
a flutter, ambushing like a moth an old book. Then indelibly, 
the blotch is dishabille as the dodo. Overdone, then done. But no 
two tethers are the same. Here we envision the ripple required 
to enter the lake: Several snakes slinking out, sinking into themselves, 
shedding skin in a disintegration—finis, fin—they end and a second 
skin begins, then again. Then again. The serpent recycles as we move 
further out. You push through: odd-turned, timed. You need a catapult
to push through, to get through, to get to the thing. More precisely: 
prescient susurrations in procedural dance moves. Yesteryear went 
swimmingly—only lukewarm deformity—but presently we’re 
doomed. (Read the news.) The routine is monotone yet intoxicated 
with color like a cartoon fine-tuned to be as bombastic and balloonistic 
as possible. We need more warmth. We need more mirrors in our limbs 
that can see and can sing. A buzzer goes off which means to begin. 
A demolition derby starts zenning in our minds while our bodies, 
sunning, ache for grace. Everything’s timed. The trick is to come
together, not conform. If it clicks, we explode on the crystal surface 
like the imperfect devotional grandeur of a doodle of a god.
Copyright © 2004–2023 Memorious