The pump still works, but something’s broken.
\nSome busted pipe under tons of concrete.<\/p>\n
Without that one little tube, nigh impossible to get at and fix, the system failed
\nAnd you stopped being a swimming pool.<\/p>\n
But a pool you remained,
\nas water shifted from blue to green,
\nclear to cloudy, vacant to crowded.<\/p>\n
Chlorine and chemicals thinned by rain, absorbed by leaves,
\nperhaps imbibed with gusto by some intrepid microorganisms like moonshine-drunk prospectors plowing into an unexploited region.
\nYou became habitable, then vulnerable, then welcoming, then home.<\/p>\n
In time, enough brazen algae and audacious critters crawled into you,
\nand did those creeping, growing, icky life things
\nthat you went from a sanitary refuge for overheated children to
\na strange captive ecosystem, bound by four concrete walls, a deep floor, and a few clogged pipes.<\/p>\n
A palette of greens: from sickly, puke pale to nearly bile-black. And yet, to others, to so much that spawns and blooms and perishes, The pump still works, but something’s broken. Some busted pipe under tons of concrete. Without that one little tube, nigh impossible to get at and fix, the system failed And you stopped being a swimming pool. But a pool you remained, as water shifted from…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47425,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46893\/revisions\/47425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nA scent not of pond, but off; a smell from the uncanny valley.
\nA habitat for bacteria, paramecia<\/em>, amoebae<\/em>, and fucking<\/strong> mosquitoes but
\nWoe betide the snake or toad, or frog that tries to find refuge in you;
\nthose walls are a lethal prison to wrong-size creatures,
\nAnd the accretion of thriving muck at the bottom hungers, always.<\/p>\n
\nYou are home; you are enough.
\nTheir tiny lives pass, full, within your poured walls;
\ncontent to have served their purpose.
\nHowever unnatural their place, and unwelcome their habitation.
\nThey get to live.\u00a0 Because of you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"