[Four Poems] by Virginia LeBaron

Four Poems

by Virginia LeBaron

Bathyal

We have cut each otherloose, like fisherfolkwho push out hookswith calloused thumbs,toss the small ones back.

They go on to survive. Find their school.But when the wind kicks upa certain way, slides the waterlike cellophane over bait with a silver glintthat, this time, looks different –there is that age-old tugdeep in the membranes of our slimy gums.

And right before all is almost all lost, again,we pull away from air and lightcast our lot with the underworld,move darker. Pass kelp and coral and translucent arcsof sea creatures that bendin our wake, graze their soft fingersalong the ragged edges of our mouths.

I love you best

when you stutter           

            that flustered   belly-up instant

marooned                    on the shore, scales glinting

before the words                     rush up

            and pull you back                                to the blue circling

of nothing                        of particular importance

Currents

These are the amps, the works, the juicethat make it all flow.

The taster’s first bite. Glassground against cud. Curtains,

lips, about to be parted,both runway and shackles readied

by sleight of hand, mirrored breatha belt loosened, a hand too hot.

One body that should know better,asking more of flesh than fair.

East Whiteland Swim Club, Memorial Day

She watched lifeguardsin cherry-red suits,whistles danglingfrom young necks.

She watched them lughuge trashcans of goldfishto the edgeand pour barrelafter barrel into the pool,and children—so many children!follow after. Frantic, screaming,desperate children. Children leaping,cannon-balling, reckless,plastic bags in hand.

She watched someone push herinto the shallow end. She watchedfish die on contact,their gills on fire.Others caught, raised high,to die moments laterbumping against wallsof plastic tombs, silver bellies up.She watched children cry,clamber out of the pool, suits stickingto thin, pale legs. She watched mothersput out Newports in the sand.

She watched herself stand,at the very end, stillin a circle of dead fish, flashinglike floating coins.

She watched her small handsskim the surface, press fish to her facein hopes of resurrection.

She watched lifeguardsuse their whistlesand big nets, scoop dead fishback into trashcans.

She watched mothersgather up their children, lay downtowels in the backseat, carefulnot to get the seats wet.

Virginia LeBaron is a nurse and a poet. Her writing is inspired, in part, by her experiences caring for patients with cancer. She is the author of one chapbook (Cardinal Marks, Finishing Line Press, 2021) and her poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Mom Egg Review, The Potomac Review, Bicoastal Review (contest finalist), Winter Anthology, and Pigeon Pages, among others. Her writing has been supported by a residency with the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Lighthouse Poetry Collective. In 2025, she was a finalist for the Arts & Letters Rumi Prize for Poetry and the winner of the Luminaire Poetry Award from Alternating Current Press.