Nightswimming

by Rebecca Jessen

do you remember feeling
like this before
buoyed by the illicit
afterhours swim

we float in gelatinous blue
under summer stars
where dense air suspends
our breath
 
chokehold of the dark
without your glasses
the night sky a blur
on your back
 
you let me describe
the way the light flares out
and extinguishes us
into nothing

Rebecca Jessen (she/her) is a timeless boi. a linen daddy. a comet trail. a groin anomaly. a body that is a bridge. a moonstruck adolescent. an incomplete list poem. 

Jessen’s poetry collection Ask Me About the Future (UQP, 2020) was shortlisted for the 2021 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry, the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry and Commended for the Anne Elder Award.