backwater

let me describe a day in paradise
the sun shines, the temperature just past hot
so the cool water shocks and soothes
once you gladly step into the clear water
it may be this time you are at the community pool
the older kids dominate though there are still
a couple under ten with sitters in tow.
you get the feeling the older kids have somehow been
left in charge and they don't quite know what to do with that power
so they play volleyball beside the lounge chairs, lunging
with wild summer brown arms at the disney princess
pink and blue ball which at some point inevitably hits
the old lady in a ron jon surf shop fishing hat
right on the head .
 if she didn't look like a white witch
in black swimsuit , black glasses, black hat,
even her toenails were black the boys might have busted a gut
laughing and making fun of the way the ball bounced
in  a classic pele head shot off her head
 glancing left just enough
to keep it from going over the safety fence
quite unitentionally, which will made bank
on america's funniest home video and since there's cameras
at the pool you know someone's gonna profit
and she says to the boys, excuse me  boys
and she pauses for effect
letting it sink in that they are boys
  in the pool area without adult supervision
and it may be a long time since she was their age
but she knows it's not the fourteen that's posted
on the rules, she says if you want to play ball for real
take it out on the playground, otherwise, get in the pool
like you're supposed to be. she doesn't yell.
 she doesn't need to.
bruja!echoes  as blackbirds
 caw  from the peak of the clubhouse
and  the  playground's  basketball hoops
nonchalantly waiting   for cheetos to drop
 from the chunky kids' fingers
 as they emerge from under the porch's cover.
a little blonde haired girl in a pink and black minnie mouse
swimsuit pulls her goggles over her eyes, she couldn't
be more than four, heads right for the edge of the pool.
she waits for a break in the ball playing and dives .
the older boys are teasing matthew who just
wants to hold the ball he doesn't know he's
monkey in the middle, four sixteen year olds
two boys, two girls huddle at the four foot corner
where the pool is still wide
but deeper, playing spin the football. a young mother
and her baby watch from the side
yells leave him alone he's only seven.
the little blonde girl kicks water
on one of the teens in the corner. he
turns the other way. this isn't a tale
of drowning or fights. the three juveniles
throwing, now, a tennis ball, two in the water
one on the deck, taunt each other
with expletives. the woman in black rises
from the lounge chair, walks to the edge, slips in.
she has her hat and glasses on. one of the tweens
in the pool hangs on the shoulders of the other proclaiming
this is my best friend, we're best buddies the third
on the deck, throws the ball, and the buddies struggle
to catch it , keep it from the other.
the water is cool. the sun is hot. the wind is gentle.
there is laughter, shouts, a couple kisses
on the ladder in the deep in where the woman in black
 paddles in one place head turned to the shallows
watching the little girl in the pink and black swimsuit
swim toward her. .