The Empty Pool in August

The pool lies opened like a pale-blue shell, its tiles rehearsing the loss of rain. Wind combs through the drain and finds only a faint mineral music, a leftover shimmer.

Weeds climb the ladder with patient fingers. Dragonflies draft quick silver signatures across the air where swimmers once broke the surface, their laughter now a thin echo under the coping stone.

At dusk, the basin gathers the sky's remaining light, not as water but as an idea of water. The moon arrives and sets its white coin down in the deepest end, where the plaster has begun to crack.

I stand at the rim and feel the season turning, a slow hinge in the dark. Even emptiness keeps a shape for longing, even thirst can learn to shine.