Swimming, Loch Garten

by Antonia Kearton

The evening sun is surreptitious.
A few waves flex, throwing light
onto the rock

where you stand, intent, steering
your brother’s remote
control boat.  I swim

out, arms opening to dark water
my mouth
bruising the surface of the loch.

A yellowing birch leaf
floats unmoored,
and a seed, round as the world

spins across
the watery, shifting Meall a’Bhuachaille
whose inverse climbs

heavily through air.