Greg Field

POOL PARTY

I walk the pool half-naked
framed by scraggly palms,
the occasional tiki torch.
Last weekend an officer
requested we turn down
the music, but by then
I’d rolled my head from
between the giant
speakers and “The Who,
Live at Leeds” had
decimated my hearing
and I nearly went to jail.
But Bill knew the cop.
The house and pool
belong to Bill’s father.
Bill’s mother is dead,
but his father always
tells us, It’s my turn!
And so it is as he goes
off like an old revolver
with a filed action.
Bill and I are in charge.
A woman’s white-haired
head rises like the moon
above the top of the pool
fence.  I look the other way.
Boy, are you going to
turn it down? Her eyes
watch from the pickets’
edge. I breathe in deep
and walk the pool
skirting the water and
the woman. I smile up
at her eyes, hear
“The Magic Bus” rev.
I shout, I love you,
I love the water. And,
I love the setting sun
like the warmth of an
imaginary girl in my arms.
The heat rests on the edge
of the Vegas afternoon
and I tell her eyes,
It’s my turn!
as the dark rushes at us
from the desert.

SIX DAYS

In six days, crowds grow
alongside the roads. 
Connections are deeper
than a river’s hidden parts. 
In six days, people feel
more sharp, more swift.
Like currents, everyone’s
in danger—the wild,
the flux, found inside. 
The edges are sharp,
specific, like surgery. 
In six days the old
are left sitting on curbs. 
In six days, wings
consume their “happy.” 
Like fish raised
out of the ocean,
they question what
is behind,
what is above—
a limit, a dream?
In six days, they chorus—
this world leaves us.

GREG FIELD is a writer, artist, and musician living in Independence, Missouri with his wife, poet Maryfrances Wagner (former Poet Laureate of Missouri,2021-2023). He plays drums with the improvisational jazz band, River Cow Orchestra. His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies to include New Letters and Chiron Review. His new book, from Woodley Press, is Uncertainties. He is a co-editor of the I-70 Review.