September, October ... one thing
you don't know at the time is when
you've had your last swim: the weather
may hold, may keep nudging you in.
Only afterwards, sometimes days on,
it dawns on you that you've done:
just the thought of undressing outdoors,
exposing bare skin, makes you wince.
And that's best, to have gone on swimming
easily to the end: your crawl
full of itself, and the future
no further than your folded towel.