Poetry

Amphibian

by Natalie Bühler

Slide in for a bilingual swim, brain suddenly porous, 
Grammar shifts but lexicon remains, the sun casts 
The same net on the pool floor, 
Pebbles petrified in concrete
And that beating breath
Then, movement 
Pushing with my frog legs 
To run a zipper-line across the surface:

One, two — HAH
                Eis, zwoi — HAH 
                                Du bisch denn en wasserratte 

I floated in unsalted pools then, watching the frogs 
Migrate at dawn, goosebumped arms 
Sticking out of wet swimmers 
Turn — HAH 
Push off the wall — HAH 
Lingered until fingertips were shrivelling;
What a funny expression away from home, a water-rat

                                                                        Eis, two, wait — 
                                Which language do I count in 
Swallow saline — HAH

Remember to swim on the left — remember the pool 
In Winterthur, so welcoming on lonely afternoons 
Don’t think of distance, don’t sink
800, 800, just fifty left — HAH 
Crawl back, eis, zwoi — HAH 
Can’t remember my mother’s rash 
After decades of working in chlorine;
Just that frogs’ skin is so porous it’ll poison them
So we’d fish out and walk them to their home in the pond

One, two, HAH
                Bubbles drowning noise — pull up into air again 
                                                Mami, ich bin hüt ändlich wider go schwümme
                                                        And walk myself home as far as I can.

Appeared in Issue Spring '22