No Fair

An empty pool even with me in it,
I make no waves, displace nothing,
But isn’t that my life’s first tenet?
Always at rest, my idle arms
Outstretched, spread-eagle on the coping;
My buoyant legs belie my mood.
The water is cool, the air warm.
I think of those bobbing, boisterous boys—
Back before we forced them to be men—
Their splash and sputter, their streaming hair,
The riotous laughter, the treasured noise
That filled the whole neighborhood.
The name of their game must have been
“Hey, quit it” or “No fair.”
The water roiled with their play,
A beach ball bouncing in the backwash.
Now, there’s just the whir of the pump.
I really should have made a splash,
But I could not bring myself to jump,
Inertia, not sufficiently kinetic.
And that Hey-Quit-It kid, today,
His liver failing, in unabated pain,
Took a .44 caliber anesthetic,
Murmured a prayer, silenced his brain.

Curtiss S. Butler