The ant, black as licorice, insists
the chair is his, roams up the legs
and arms as if the pool with its cool
blue depths wasn’t a foot away,
where the boy learns how water
can cup the torso, slide past hair
like a mini-ocean, not quite welcome,
not quite unfamiliar, but still
terrifying:
the absence of air,
how necessary it is to blow bubbles
through the nose, become a dolphin,
free with clicks and the fresh
jump into the deep
where water opens its mouth
and speaks.