The Empty Pool by Sue Ellen Thompson

The Empty Pool

by Sue Ellen Thompson

published in The Summerset Review, Spring 2010

This is the place where my sisters and I

lay all afternoon on plastic rafts,

too listless to shift our weight

or direct our idle drifting. At the click

of the gate, we'd lift our heads

as if from our sickbeds, and there

our mother would be: white shorts,

white shirt, hair fading to gray,

with a tray of cold drinks and sandwiches.

This is the place where, on a hot June day

five summers ago, I pulled myself

fr...