Green Lake in summer
So deep the bottom never found
My mother, in a striped one-piece
Moved strongly through the unruffled water
Back and forth, along the buoy line

But only after we were too languorous
In the heat
To disappear
We lay on towels, with baloney on white
Apples, lemonade

She would emerge, like Venus
Rising from her scalloped bowl
A 1950's Botteccelli, thighs flashing like pearls
From the milky water

Since '93, we've made our way
Without her long strokes
The smooth muscles of her legs
The slow turning of her head, side to side

Green lake is still bottomless
Children still dig in the sand
Watched over by mothers in bathing suits
Children sticky, hot, quarrelsome, sandwiches, apples

Children still watch a swimmer by the buoy line
Tireless, sure, solitary
A woman, beyond the shouts and worries of the shore
Arm over arm, stroking