This week’s poem, by Anne Cyr, takes us swimming on an investigation into a small mystery the speaker spots in the water. I love the ease and images of this poem’s storytelling, and how gently it guides us from details of the dock and cove to inklings of mortality — as well as the warm moments that transcend it.

Cyr is a retired educator who is lucky enough to split her time between Buxton and Southport. Her poems often reflect both the woods and the sea, as well as explore the foibles of human nature. Her poems, essays and short stories have been printed in several New England publications, including Northern Woodlands magazine and Reflections (an annual publication of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Southern Maine), and one of her poems has also been read on Maine Public Radio’s “Poems from Here.”

The Shock of It

It was hot, even under the shade
of the oversized umbrella.
I pull on my old, skirted one-piece
that lives in the back of the drawer
for days like this, when a northerly breeze
means the south-facing deck bakes.

Walking down the long pier
an osprey cries overhead
and two sleek minks tumble around
on the rocks and dive in.

Once down the ramp and on the dock
I spy bits of white, like rumpled tissue,
caught in the rockweed off to the side–
breaking the surface, even at high tide.

I climb down the old ladder
rung after rung, trying to channel
my mink self until finally
plunging into the cold cove water,
squealing at the shock of it.

The urge to get back out is strong,
but curiosity overcomes instinct
and I breaststroke my way
over to the bits of white…

It’s not tissue. Or foam. Or plastic. Instead, roses.
Dozens of long-stemmed white roses,
rocking gently in the arms of rockweed.
Tossed by one of the brides
married at the inn next door?

More likely a remembrance. This sobering thought
turns me around, back to the dock,
where at last I find myself floating
in a thin layer of warmth–
a warmth that must have been there all along.

— By Anne Cyr

Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “The Shock of It,” copyright 2025 by Anne Cyr, appears by permission of the author.