The Bather in  General   

Where the path to the lake twists out of sight,
A puff of dust, the kind bare feet make running,
Is what I saw in the dying light,
Night swooping down everywhere else.

A low branch heavy with leaves
Swaying momentarily where the shade
Lay thickest, some late bather
Disrobing right there for a quick dip--

(Or my solitude playing a trick on me?)
Pinned hair coming undone, soon to float
As she turns on her back, letting
The dozy current take her as it wishes

Beyond the last drooping branch
To where the sky opens
Black as the water under her white arms,
In the deepening night, deepening hush,

The treetops like charred paper edges,
Even the insects oddly reclusive
While I strained to hear a splash,
Or glimpse her running back to her clothes . . .

And when I did not; I just sat there.
The rare rush of wind in the leaves
Still fooling me now and then,
Until the chill made me go in.

By Charles Simic

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Other poems by Charles Simic:

• A Book Full of Pictures
• Against Winter
• Clouds Gathering
• Coal
• Errata
• Eyes Fastened With Pins
• Heights Of Folly
• Hotel Insomnia
• Inner Man
• Paradise Motel
• Pocket Theatre
• Poem Without A Title
• Private Eye
• Read Your Fate
• Summer In The Country
• Talking To Little Birdies
• The Bather
• The Initiate
• The Oldest Child
• The Partial Explanation
• The School Of Metaphysics
• The Supreme Moment
• The White Room
• This Morning
• To The One Upstairs
• Watermelons
• Wherein Obscurely