I started to love her in open view.
In the mornings we would walk together
and she would reach out
and try to pull me in with her gentle beckoning.
At first, I think, we sank into the background,
but each day that they saw us together solidified the emotions
that the inquisitive observers realized through our shared whispers
and the smiles caused by the revelation of what those whispers meant.
They began to wave each day
as I floated by with her lips gently pressing against me.
I could not help but wave back to respond
that all they had assumed was true.

I appeared to love her too suddenly for open view.
They saw her gentle beckoning pull me into her in the afternoon
of the same morning they realized our whispers.
Objections were called out and followed with reasoned fear.

She is still too cold to hold you.

You cannot tell me that you are fine when your lips are trembling.

It would be wise to wait for a better season.

What do you think you are proving by doing this?

I had started to love her in open view,
but what the observers failed to realize
was that I was trembling before my body ever touched the water.
While they slept at night I longed for her,
and rose out of the comfortable warmth of safety.
In nights of frigid cold I ran to her
and poured myself into the only container
large enough to hold the emotion that it caused.

I appeared to love her too suddenly for open view.
I could not wade in slowly enough
to let the water get acclimated to me.
I longed to be surrounded by the one
that pulled me in with her gentle beckoning.

I gasped, wide-eyed, as I broke the surface,
with the lively smile of a man
determined to swim in the waters he loves
regardless of the season.