Page 35 - WTP Vol. XI #2

The Swimming Pool at the St. George Hotel
My father lived through a time
just after the war when a job,
a hand wax on the car,
and a close shave were enough. Swimming, however, would cleanse him of the bookmaker, ease the pain he must have known in the Ardennes although we never asked him about it.
In the ocean confident strokes easily took him past all
the other swimmers, far beyond the breakers. As he swam
I could imagine the water spreading across his broad forehead sloping back and soaking his wavy black hair as he glided on toward the horizon.
In the winter he sought
the natural salt waters at the pool
in the old hotel on Clark Street
in far-away Brooklyn. I remember
the voices, the water splashing,
nearly haunting sounds echoing against the green tile, and the last stop, the steam room where I couldn’t go, where he shed all things past
and present through his skin.
Ruffus was raised in New York and has studied at various universi- ties. For many years he has lived in Utah with his wife and children, working as a college teacher and administrator. His work has ap- peared in journals including The American Journal of Poetry, Hotel Amerika, and Valparaiso Poetry Review.
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