down shirley highway

we would dive for copper
pennies
in the deep end of the airman's pool
on base
at Bolling,
down Shirley Highway, or
South Capitol street,
depending on how brave we were
on our bikes,
weather and parents
permitting.
we had our military id's,
and a pocket full
of change for sodas
and hot dogs
at the concession stand.
we were not brave boys
or girls who
who traveled those roads
in southeast dc, but
we were young and strong,
innocent and naïve.
we would dive for pennies
in the clean blue water
of the pool.
lined in black, the ropes
for those swimming
doing laps.
down we would go off the side,
like skinny white
tadpoles,
diving, diving to the bottom
where the steel drain was,
our eyes blurred with chlorine,
red and stinging,
our ears popping from
the pressure.
we were tanned and burned,
lean. we through ourselves
into
cannonballs off the low dive,
the music over the loudspeaker,
sixties pop, the smell of coconut
butter,
the girls in modest bikinis,
the lifeguard with his whistle
keeping us between
the lines.
life was wonderful,
and it felt like it would
never end,
it seems now like a distant
impossible dream.