Lake Crossings
by Lucinda Trew
It was the lake sighting we looked forward to every July, scanning the morning-calm from our rocky outlook, disregarding the splash of pike and perch, the dance of dragonflies, swoop of loon and gull. It was Susan Ware we watched for, swimming from her cove to ours, steady strokes cleaving cool water, her white bathing cap blinking as she rhythmically turned her face to breathe, in and out, reach and kick, glide and again, the ticking hands of a schoolroom clock.
The first summer, we worried. It seemed an impossible feat – to cross a lake that connected two states, reached northward into Canada, was cold and deep and buffered not by sandy beach but ancient outcroppings of limestone and quartz.
And Susan was old. Not as old as Lake Champlain’s flinty cliffs, but in her 70s, we guessed. Not that you would know from her vigorous draw, the smooth rotation of shoulders and hips, the flutter kick thrust.
It was only when she moored herself to our floating dock, leaned forward on bony elbows, pushed back goggles, and pulled off her cap with that vacuum-sucking sound that you realized Susan Ware was not a girl, but a woman – an old woman.
Her short damp hair was gray. And when she eased out of the water she revealed a faded, stretched-out black one-piece – a grandma swimsuit minus the skirt. She’d rest on the dock or sun-warmed rocks for a while, updating us on the latest in this piney Adirondack alcove – who had caught the biggest fish so far, where to buy the best heirloom tomatoes, which hiking paths were in need of clearing, her granddaughter’s new chestnut foal.
But her conversation was as brisk and purposeful as her daily crossing. Soon she’d slide back in, adjust foggy goggles, and head for home shore. We’d watch the shimmering wake behind her, somehow knowing the lake watched, too.
Lucinda Trew is a poet and essayist whose work has been featured in Bloodroot Literary Magazine, The Poet, Cathexis Northwest, Mockingheart Review, storySouth, Eastern Iowa Review, and other journals and anthologies. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee and recipient of Boulevard Magazine’s 2023 Poetry Contest for Emerging Poets. She lives and writes in Union County, N.C. with her jazz musician husband, two dogs, and far too many books to count. Her debut collection, What Falls to Ground, was recently published by Charlotte Lit Press.