the first time i wanted to be a ghost

have your ever thought
about the pools in hotels?
there's got to be a million,
the inn i'm staying at has
one, a great cement bowl 
of chlorine. i have no bathing suit.
i didn't pack one on purpose,
i was worried that i would
feel tempted to go swim late
at night after the pool's closed
& it fills up with ghosts.
i would want to take you with me
& ask you to hold me underwater
until i'm a ghost too.
no it's not morbid, have you seen
the pool? watering holes 
for drifting spirits; in the water 
they get their bodies back again.
i remember the Day's Inn 
on the way to Maine with its
tiny square pool full of children,
at least half of them had 
to have been ghosts. i stood
& watched from the hallway
through the fogged glass
as they became water animals,
a school of gigantic tuna,
slapping at the tile floor.
there is no bottom to the pools
in hotels. if you swim deep enough 
you find yourself in the pipes,
navigating the bones
of the place, listening
to a dozen twin-bed conversations
& hotel bibles opening.
i know if i let myself swim 
that i would have to be a ghost, 
that i would kick till i touched the bottom,
never coming back. if you're
careful, of course, you can
sit down there without going 
too deep & the ghost
children will make faces 
at you in the water. they'll
speak like whales in morphed voices.
i walk down without you just
to stare at it. i remember
the hotel pool when i was little
& my family stayed in D.C.
the hotel had a piano that played
itself & at night that ghost
came down to the pool
& turned into a manta ray.
as i swam i saw it, its
great wings oscillating 
on the floor of the pool.
that was the first time
i knew i had to be a ghost.