Before Water Returns

At dawn the public pool is a drained sky, blue tiles cradle last night in chipped enamel. A lifeguard chair leans like a question mark, and wind combs leaves through the empty lanes.

I walk the deep end where swallows used to stitch black thread over the glittering surface. Now only echo practices diving, dropping once, then once again.

In the pump room, valves bloom with rust-red lichen; metal remembers every summer scream. I press my ear to a silent pipe and hear rain rehearsing far upriver.

By noon, children will chalk galaxies on concrete, planets circling a cracked white drain. The pool will fill with voices before water, and the day will learn to float on sound.