they drag the
sky blue plastic pool
into the street
scraping gravel and laughing,
fill it with a hose
and the water looks
sky blue too
even though the sky
looks dishwater gray,
strafed with greasy clouds,
the sun wrapped in oily wax paper.
they splash
and make wet footprints
dancing on the steaming cement
sidewalk littered with the night’s
treasures—
seductive slivers of
broken beer jewelry
and washed up
dead jellyfish rubbers.
splashing,
screaming,
soft pink skin running
barefoot and blind—
and nobody gets cut
and nobody gets stung.
Luke Boyd worked at a sawmill and a trucking company to put himself through college and now is an inner-city high school teacher in Allentown, Pennsylvania. According to his students Boyd has invented the Internet, the number 7, and sarcasm. Some of his work has appeared in: The Misfit Literati, Bewildering Stories, Dark Sky Magazine, and Wanderings. He is rumored to believe in unicorns.