"Louganis"

The World in Us

Introduction

The Editors' Introduction

Poems:

"What the Body Told" by Rafael Campo

"Mango Poem" by Regie Cabico

"Marianne Faithfull's Cigarette" by Gerry Gomez Pearlberg

"Louganis" by Eloise Klein Healy

The World in Us "Louganis"

By Eloise Klein Healy
From The World in Us

If Praxiteles had been an animator, this form
is the one he would have set in motion —
a spinning diver hurtling down
toward the surface of a pool,
its smooth skin raised to ripples
by an automatic wind machine.

He'd sculpt Louganis like a beautiful machine
poised against the cloudless sky, then charge his form
with action — the rippling
muscles of the torso tensing with explosive motion
as the diver vaults, kicks out and plunges into the pool
where cameras follow him down,

a sheath of bubbles wrapping him, down
where applause is a watery blur, the machine
of celebrity waiting above him, the press pool
of reporters eager to surround, touch his form —
a boy-god, perfect in stasis or motion,
an athlete who could ignite any crowd, send ripples

of excitement through an arena, ripples
of awe around the globe, even after he stepped down
from competition. I saw him once, pure motion
in a dog show ring, his Great Dane puppy not yet machined
into perfection. Greg was the one all form,
perfectly balanced on his toes, emerging from a pool

of dog handlers as the star. Outside a swimming pool,
nobody recognized him at first, but ripples
of applause picked up, formed
a little cup of sound, then settled down
again as he was one of us, no machine
of glory, just a guy and his dog in motion.

That was before rumors of HIV set chaos in motion
and sports shows ran films of his infected blood coloring the pool.
Predictably, the story fed into the tabloid machine
and the customary scornful ripple
of reaction to anybody gay threatened to drive his name down
from Olympus, but no bigotry could change the form

of his achievement, no machine of hate or ripple
of fear for his life could alter the timeless motion into a pool
of a beautiful boy falling down from heaven into perfect form.

Eloise Klein Healy is the founding chair of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles and the associated editor/poetry editor of The Lesbian Review of Books. She is the author of Building Some Changes (Beyond Baroque Foundation, 1976), A Packet Beating Like a Heart (Books of a Feather Press, 1981), Ordinary Wisdom (Paradise Press, 1981), Artemis in Echo Park (Firebrand Books, 1991), and Women's Studies Chronicles (The Inevitable Press, 1998). Her work has been anthologized in The Zenith of Desire (Crown Publishers, 1996); Queer Dog (Cleis Press, 1997); Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals (Ballantine, 1998); Blood Whispers: LA Writers on AIDS, vol 2 (Silverton Books, 1994); The Key to Everything: Classic Lesbian Love Poems (St. Martin's Press, 1995); Ladies, Start Your Engines: Women Writers on Cars and the Road (Faber & Faber, 1996); The Arc of Love: An Anthology of Lesbian Love Poems (Scribner, 1996); and Hers: Brilliant New Fiction by Lesbian Writers (Faber & Faber, 1995). "Artemis in Echo Park/The Women's Studies Chronicles" is available on CD/audiotape from New Alliance Records.