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.