Tuesday Poem - The Deep End by Ali Alizadeh

The Deep End

i

It was pleasant. The cool

evanescent sensations

on my chest. The laughter

of my cousins. All of us

wading in the shallow end

under the hypothetical gaze

of chitchatting parents

enjoying respite from

the bombing raids, this scene

of kids’ water play at my uncle’s

in Tehran. Mummy somewhere

in the background, my father

there too. Warm, effervescent

stuff. Add in ice cubes

bubbly drinks, juicy cherries

on foldout table by the rim

of the pool, and dissonant

babble of wet children. Why

did I stray away towards the deep

end? I knew I couldn’t swim.

ii

The summertime bliss

of a child’s inexperience, my boy’s

hairless body, a slate

clean of all but the most

primal connotations. But where

was ‘love’ – of parents, uncle

my own – when I felt my grasp

slip from the tiles at the edge

of the pool? Had my sociable

guardians’ passion to prattle superseded

the chore of guarding me? Perhaps

they were gossiping about someone’s

daughter losing her suitor, money

wasted on a despised relative’s

fortunately failed venture,

the opulent house purchased

by a favoured relative, and hoping

to awe everyone by finally migrating

to the West – just as my feet

slipped over the drop into the deep

end. Water swamped my nostrils,

ears, mouth. I was drowning.

iii

My father fished me out. Did he

think it normal that little boys be

curious, reckless, tempting

death? Yes, but I never told him

that in my brief descent

I’d seen underwater the azure

of the pool’s walls and

nothing else. No maritime beasts,

no eels or octopi of Captain Nemo’s

abyss (as promised by a book

Mummy had given me) no light

or angels, no finality of an end

(as divined by my grandmother’s

Islam.) Only an absolute, monochrome

void. I’ve never told my father

I’d sunk into the infinite emptiness

of dying. Later he dried his hands,

resumed the talk about his job,

his plans to move us from War-torn

Iran to the West. I coughed up

water, shivered in the folds of the towel

and withdrew. I didn’t care for

– and could never again really care for –

the glass of sugary cold sherbet

Mummy had poured for me.

This poem comes from Ali's wonderful book Ashes in the Air (UQP) which was short listed for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards in 2012.

http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/book.aspx/1120/Ashes%20in%20the%20Air