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.

Is that the music of the spheres
Or just the ringing in my ears?

A combination of things--
a sense of the improbability of combining them, 
of connecting the pieces together,
the certain knowledge of failure in the end,
and on occasion wishing for the day
when you can breathe it out 
and let it go.

How can it be
that I alone
feel the warmth
of the sun
on my cheek?