The Water Park Closes for the Season

Leigh Kirkland

I remember a hot sunny day, three adults
drifting through a procession of cherry lifesavers
in a rented red inner tube on an elevated river.
The clean briskness of dry chlorine, the blue-
green innocence of our segregated public swimming pool
afternoons, the stale air of the whole thing escaping the valve.
Voices bubbling through a soundtrack
meant nothing to us, while the music
explained everything the audience needed
to know about a river run dry.