I went in at nine

I went in at nine

because I couldn't sleep

and the vending machine was out of everything

I actually wanted.

The pool was empty.

The lights above it hummed

at a frequency that settled just behind the eyes.

I waded in to my waist

and looked down.

My legs were pale in there,

bent at an angle they don't actually bend—

the faded aqua paint underneath them

making everything look like something

someone had tried to correct.

I kept looking.

The filter ran its slow circuit.

One sandal sat on the wet tile at the edge,

facing nothing in particular.

I thought: whose legs.

Not a real question.

More like the kind of thing the mind does

at nine o'clock in a motel pool

off an exit you won't remember taking.

The water held me

the way it holds everything—

without opinion,

without noticing it's doing it at all.