The Pool in Palm Springs
It’s a hundred and ten and I’m drifting
through the last hour of the long
weekend at our favorite hotel, floating
in the sparkling blue
half-submerged and dozing. Behind
the low hum of the air conditioner
voices rise and fall, sounds
without language. Music plays
distant and foreign. Footsteps come closer
then fade. The water is warm as the air
as my body until I don’t know
where it ends and I begin.
I am in this world and out of it. Far away
and close. I am bobbing and safe, back
in utero, that echoey halfway house
between being and not being.
We were all here once. Me and you, the owners
of this hotel, the men and women
mowing the lawn and cleaning the rooms,
Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, David Hockney.
All of us swimming around, warm and wet
little tadpoles. Primitive, primordial, connected.
None of us knowing that even the longest
weekends end eventually. None of us ready
for the push and pull, for the labor with a life
of its own. It’s time
to check out, dripping and cold.
Open the door and close it again.
Stand on the sidewalk. Blink up at the sun.
Originally published in the San Pedro River Review, Spring 2026 issue
I’d been working on this poem for a while, but really broke through during a workshop I took out of UCLA. After the first meeting, I was thinking a lot about the overarching point that our instructor, Benin Lemus, made about poetry: that it’s the art of language.
I knew I wanted this poem to be very sensory in terms of evoking that feeling of being a fetus floating around in the water. But I hadn’t really thought too much about how the poem actually looked on the page. I’d originally put it in tercets, but then realized that if I was talking about feeling like I was back in the womb, it was better as couplets to reflect that mother/baby relationship.
This adjustment is the kind of thing that probably nobody will notice. But it read better and looked better, too. So much of what makes poetry work is under the surface. We can’t always explain why a poem gave us the chills or made our heart beat faster. That’s what I love about poetry – it’s created from language but somehow works in a place beyond language too.
What Inspires You
Anything can inspire me at any time. I try to notice everything, especially if it’s weird. But a short list is: music, art, water, birds, airplane safety cards, family funerals, family holidays, driveway basketball, compound interest, maps, people I was rude to a long time ago, my writing group, my husband, son, cousin, Zoom classes, Frank O’Hara, my father’s death, my mother’s life, long showers, boring commutes, books, everything ordinary – all of it is poetry.
Bio
Amy Forstadt’s poetry and fiction have appeared or are upcoming in Apricity Magazine, The San Pedro River Review, Eunoia Review, Your Impossible Voice, and The Metaworker, among others. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, and 2.5 cats.
Find the Spring 2026 Issue HERE
Previous NPM 2026 poets
| April 1 | Amy Forstadt |