Sitting apart on a summer afternoon,
listening to the singsong calls
and slapping feet
of humans gathered at a swimming pool,
I wondered why. 

At first it seemed an ordinary question,
with an undoubtedly ordinary answer
that I couldn’t quite recall.
I found myself puzzled,
as if I had misplaced
a common word
on the tip of my tongue.
I looked around quickly
and almost caught it,
lurking outside my field of vision.
I was certain it was there.

But like an alien floater,
bent and twisted 
on the surface of my eye,
the more I fixed upon it,
the more it slipped away.

It was absurd to not know why
this gaggle gathered there
to do what they did.

There had to be a reason,
but it disappeared that day
and didn’t come back.
I don’t know why.