Lidia Torres’ poem “Adrift” primarily conveys a sense of loneliness and youth while yearning for a time gone by. The speaker reminisces about sneaking into a deserted pool at a community college late at night, swimming until the lights went out, and spending intimate moments with the lifeguard. The poem captures a brief time in the speaker's life, but it also explores vulnerability, intimacy, and self-discovery. Furthermore, the speaker reflects on the physical changes in their own body as well as the passing aspect of youth. Torres successfully creates a feeling of nostalgia and desire for the past through the use of sensory images, symbolism, and metaphor.
The sensory imagery of "Adrift" paints a vivid picture of the speaker's encounters
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The deserted pool is one of the most significant symbols, signifying the speaker's solitude. The speaker dives to “touch / the tiles below. / Then reaching for that solitary buoyancy / until the lights went out” (Torres 5-7). The tiles at the pool's bottom are another metaphor, signifying the speaker's life's boundaries and restrictions. The act of reaching for buoyancy in the water also represents the speaker's yearning for freedom and liberation from these constraints. The abandoned pool at the community college recalls a memory from the speaker's past, a location they used to visit on a regular basis. The lights going out and the closing signal represent the end of something, both of the speaker's time at the pool and of their youth. Furthermore, the description of the lifeguard's "modest shrunken penis" and the speaker's "forgotten breasts," (Torres 16) represent the impermanence of youth and beauty, and the passing of time. Altogether, these symbols evoke a profound feeling of nostalgia, expressing a yearning for a moment that has passed and cannot be relived, giving another dimension of emotional depth to the