Breathing Water



once you told me | how your father | took you swimming | years ago when you were young || and he told you | that his daughter | had a magic lung | and that you were able | breathing under water || when he swam another round | you tried though you could hardly swim | and almost drowned || i had trusted you | like you trusted your father | and now i am | breathing water||
"Father, this thick air is murderous / I would breathe water." these are the final lines of the poem "full fathom five" by Sylvia Plath. i connected the metaphor to a childhood memory that a friend of mine once told me.