lengths before work

All summer you swam in the ponds at seven, before work, before the day got its hands on you. The water holds its cold longer than the air does, the ducks are unimpressed by everyone equally, and an old man who has swum there fifty years nods good morning at exactly the same spot each time, as if the two of you had an appointment.

You counted lengths in your head and lost count in the same place every day, and for twenty minutes you owed nothing to anyone. Then you dried off on the bank with grass sticking to your feet, and the whole city started without you, and you let it.