Labor Day weekend
has finally arrived
the pool that was cool all
this swim season sparkling now under
a furnace sun, the wind having swept
the week's clouds away

I'm alone in the water
porpoising back and forth,
soon the lifeguards from Jamaica,
those still and silent black Buddhas,
who watched over my endless laps all summer
will return home to studies
to families, to lovers
without once having entered the water

the bikinied nurse will find
another place to worship the sun
the water will sleep for seven months
safe under a cover the maintenance team
pulls taut over it

I imagine that months later
a young girl, perhaps hoping for a different
season, will stop her mother to point
and say pool