Lifeguard On Duty With Oranges


Barely drinking age, wearing red trunks 
with white stripes, neon green and yellow
tank top, a student on the swim team, 
his hair tinted gold as Olympic coins.

From the depths of his backpack always 
an orange placed upon the Red Cross desk 
like a miniature sun. Stashed in his dorm room, 
care packages from Florida, surplus off
backyard branches survive the freeze of travel, 
and when that supply runs out, lifted one by one 
out of the bin at breakfast in the Commons.

Our breaths catching the first few whiffs
mid-backstroke or crawl, some of us older 
regulars smile across the lanes between 
laps as perfumed bursts of peel against flesh   

saturate the chlorinated air, flashes rescued 
from inland routes as if we’d all accelerated 
together, wild teens past citrus groves 
at the speed of light, in search of an 
ocean to submerge ourselves in. 

Who knew decades down the road, 
if one of us should falter during the slosh 
and splash of our lunch hour 
routines, our hearts or legs suddenly 
cramp or give way under pool water,
we’d be ready for youth to save us, 

disciplined as he is noon-in, noon-out, 
trekking through snow or subzero weather 
to earn his weekly work-study paycheck. 
Occasionally glancing at the wall clock, 
his cell phone, or chatting up the coach, 

addicted to the tart and sweet,
he gives us his mostly undivided 
attention, certified muscled will, 
hours of practice, training, skill 
eating section by section with both
hands on the prize as if he were blind.