Summer Family Vacation, 40" x 30" Oil on Canvas, inspired this poem by New Mexico poet Miriam Sagan as part of the Giving Voice to Image 6 exhibit at ViVO Contemporary. The show marks the 6th annual presentation of this popular event which joins poets and artists together in this unique collaboration.
Here is the poem created by Miriam Sagan:
SWIMMER
Miriam Sagan
Barefoot on the hot cement
between the turquoise pool
and the ice cream stand
my scrawny seven year old self
with my small belly
pouched out
above the band of my bathing suit.
Suddenly I’m ringed
by the big kids, much
bigger than I am
mostly boys, one girl,
and they say
“let’s throw you
in the pool
and see if you can swim.”
I can swim,
I just don’t want to be
thrown,
so I smile back
and mouth off
and say—“sure,
you can easily
toss me in
I’d never fight you
I’d never win.”
And for some
miraculous reason
this makes them laugh
and walk away.
No longer threatened
I just jump in myself
chlorine stinging my eyes
water up my nose
and do the dead man’s float,
beneath the rippled surface,
the legs of other swimmers,
I see the city
I’ve always known was there,
of coral towers
with pearl windows
house of peacock shimmer
abalone
with roof of oyster shell
shingles.
It rises from the painted
bottom of the pool,
I’m careful
not to cut my foot
on its pagodas
as I dive deeper down,
then surface
holding a penny
plucked from the drain.