Cool Ghosts

From the car, the first child

to spot the half-built tree house

in the woods by the pool sang it out.

Twenty feet up, it was shaped like a ship's hull,

a cool ghost from the shade, sailing in the air.

Back then, there was always a syrup

of black beetles in the filter-trap of the pool.

The slower Marco called, the safer Polo felt.

You could hump the freshwater intake pipe,

or tread water for however long a minute was.

Between air and water

in the deaf moment of this next dive,

everything is quicker than my body:

lane stripes sidewinding up through the water,

the necklace of buoys almost breaking.

My hands fluke slowly into entry,

fingers spreading inches from the bottom.

Something dark jumps at my breath,

a penny green with age.

I imagine my father wading up above,

the way he used to duck his head to cool off,

slipping down so long he looks surprised--

he planned on going under, but not this far,

and where is the breath to meet it all?--

much as he looked last time I saw him alive.