It's really loud here. Water crashes,
Echoes clatter off the tiles.
Muddled music blares
From a cheap ghetto blaster.
(For the fat ladies splashing
In the aquaerobics class).
No clear words but voices
Show lots of different accents.

As I push, kick, gulp air
I wonder where everyone's from.
I'm sure those shouts (three lads
Diving at the deep end)
Are Slavic. Somewhere far
From Leicester, for sure.

I swim on—eight lengths now.
Not wearing glasses and my goggles
Misted over. In the next lane
I vaguely sense another body.
Brown shape, distorted, left and ahead.
I swerve and we miss but feet touch.
Strangely cool in this warm water.
Oddly intimate. We pretend—
I pretend—it never happened.

Three more lengths and I clamber out,
Slap/drip to the changing room,
Shower and dress, go back to work.

Separate lives in separate lanes.
The possibility of a touch,
But zero impact.