The black

        hotel pool

        has no diving board.

        After ten it grows quiet,

        after midnight silent.

        Empty--without fish, eels,

        or turtles--it teems

        with microbes busy

        with their wet blind work,

        even on the deflating

        yellow ball some child

        forgot. The mattress

        is full of hooked,

        milky-white translucent

        forms too small

        for ordinary microscopes.

        Until I roped open

        the heavy drapery

        the room was black too,

        darker than the pool,

        or the night outside.

        In the light from the night

        I stare into darkness

        and see shapes

        I almost recognize.


 Copyright  Thomas David Lisk, 2000.  All Rights Reserved.