Lifeguard

Lifeguard

Lifeguard

Of course I know he meant nothing to me
alive, why would he, a part-time lifeguard
at the local pool I’d only ever glimpse
slumped in a plastic chair or standing deep
in a cupboard leaning his chin on a mop.
The only thing that passed between us
was a look – almost cold from us both –
when I asked him for armbands, the hard kind.
He handed them to me as if I wasn’t there.
The day he died I drove past Skindeep
and saw him outside on the pavement, smoking,
squinting into the late afternoon sun,
his shaved head, his bald stumpy legs.
Yes, I remember thinking, that fits, that crew –
pierced, tattooed, the hair (too much or none), the bikes.
And glancing in the rear view mirror I saw
his smooth head almost golden in the dust. 
A few hours later I walked into the pool foyer
and there, to one side – a sheaf of lilies
in a mop-bucket and a small table
where a few sweaty carnations were scattered
around three photos in a plastic sleeve:
one of him looking very small on his bike;
another he must’ve taken himself, it had that
mild looming look of a fish swimming up
to its own reflection; and one of him
hunched over a naked back, needle in hand,
with such a look of care and concentration
I almost felt his breath on the back of my neck.
People were walking past and buying tickets.
Someone was explaining about off-peak times.
It’d been one of those suddenly hot days
at the end of March and there was something high
and reckless in the air. I’d seen a woman
at the lights with huge long breasts in a low black top
and men with their tongues practically hanging out
and I remember thinking here we go again
and the kids in the back were squabbling and my thighs
sticking together and I wanted only to dive into the pool
though I’d never learnt how and wondered now
was it too late and who would I get to teach me?
The road kept on before us, hot and black.
I thought of how big and soft his face was
as if his features hadn’t quite finished forming
though already punched with studs and rings and chains
and his eyes seemed swollen and full of something
like he’d cried a lot as a baby or not enough.
He never looked at us. I remember thinking
how could this man save us? how would he know
if one of us just stopped and slipped down
on to the tiled floor? He’d look out across
our blue bright shrieking square
but never at us. Not in the way he is now
like the dead do from their lonely stations
and I’m looking at him in a way I never did
when we lived in the same time, same town
with its narrow streets and muck and diesel air.
Now, when he appears there on the pavement,
smoking and squinting into the light, I see
evermoving water, a slab pinned and still,
a body submerged, a body pierced.
But then, when the lights changed and I pulled away
(let me say this now and without pride)
I had you drugged and disaffected and I marvelled
with some bitterness how someone like you
could ever be sleek and forgetful and strong
in the clear blue streams, could ever have the grace
or urge – however vague – to save a life.
How was I to know I’d just seen a man
in his last light, taking time out for a smoke,
a final look at old Fowlers’ smashed windows,
its drape of red ivy and saggy weeping nests,
an hour or so before he swung a leg
over the new bike, dropped the visor down,
wound his way out in the low evening sun
to the A28, the Little Chef bend, the lorry.