Swimming Instructor Poem by Jan Owen

for Mona Lisa in the fifth lane

Lips straight from the Quattrocento, at each end
a secret curlicue on a face as poised and round
as the smiling angel of Rheims surveying the world of men,
and a neck pure Primavera. Her green T-shirt's skin-tight
on breasts so high and full they're made to clasp.

Around her, four small boys of seven or eight
bob like apples in a barrel, shriek and splutter and gasp.
The echoes and reflections bounce off water and wall,
cross-currents of noise, drunken ripples of light.
She moves as evenly as a tide backwards along the lane,
a small head pressed against her belly, backstrokes
faltering left and right, guiding each in turn: ‘Point your toes,
Michael. Head back, Luke, ' she calls above the din.
Small knobs hard with cold, they flail and flounder on.

It's Sunday morning, the fathers have brought them down.
Men nearing forty now, they wait in the humid air,
fidget on benches at the side
and stare at their boisterous offspring and at her.
Their thoughts lap round like water, aching to touch,
as each little boy splashes towards horizons
green as promises, ripe as pippins in May.

The lesson done, they sigh and look away
from the bosom by Rubens under the shirt by Sportsgirl,
and that smile by da Vinci, half-innocent of it all.