Hunter and Hannah watch me from the shore
except they do not watch me,
they watch each other
and I watch them watching each other

my feet don’t reach the bottom here

I swim out to the end of the pier and then
back to the shore,
where Hunter and Hannah still watch each other,
then back out, past the pier
and wait

I don’t dunk my head in, either,
not this time
just let the green-blue Chihuly waves
caress my neck and press against me
green-blue from above
green-blue from the sides
green-blue from below and between my legs

being touched often feels like
waiting for something to be taken away from me

here in the water where its only request
is to float or go under —
whichever
I prefer
— the touch of the cool wet gargantuan glass
feels like a responsibility
gifted to me by God

I dream of water passing through
my lips, my eyes, my ears
all my orifices
and my orisons
filling my throat and my stomach
until it presses through the tips of me and back out
into the lake where it belongs

ripping right through me,
a swimmer
drowning in the cool wet arms
of a body that knows how to hold me

Stephanie Neuerburg is an actor, playwright, and poet based in Chicago, IL. Her work has been featured at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Oregon Fringe Festival, Ashland New Plays Festival, and Seattle Public Theater, among others in the Puget Sound, Bay, and Chicagoland areas. Her original play Science Night was a national finalist for the John Cauble Outstanding Short Play Award in 2015. Stephanie holds a major in performance and a minor in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry from Southern Oregon University, and has worked with award-winning playwright Anne Washburn, Tony Award-winning director Bill Rauch, and poet K. Silem Mohammad. For more information visit www.stephanieneuerburg.com.