by Allison Field Bell
Day-drunk in Liberty Park. Maybe just a Saturday in the spring. Maybe I see daffodils and tulips on the walk home. A splash of color: sun-drenched yellow, sharp bright scarlet. Maybe there are purple irises too, those intricate petaled heads rising above the rest. Maybe I think about the green of this place, set against the backdrop of the snowcapped Wasatch. Maybe there are ducks and geese in the pond. Maybe the pond is full or maybe it is drained. I remember a summer day in my childhood vegetable garden, hands in the dirt, rooting out fresh carrots. The way they grew fat and twisted, the satisfying snap of them between my teeth. The dirt grit on my lips. Maybe I can’t remember that either. Just like Liberty Park. Day-drunk. Just a Saturday. Spring. Maybe I am an alcoholic is something I’ve said as a joke. Maybe I remember the day I realized I meant it, and maybe it was this day: Saturday, day-drunk, Liberty Park. Maybe memory has nothing to do with it. Maybe I did remember the daffodils, the tulips, the irises. Maybe day-drunk is just another Saturday. Maybe I even remembered the carrots.
Allison Field Bell is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Utah, and she holds an MFA in Creative Writing from New Mexico State University. Her debut poetry collection, ALL THAT BLUE, is forthcoming in 2026. She is also the author of two chapbooks, WITHOUT WOMAN OR BODY (Poetry, Finishing Line Press) and EDGE OF THE SEA (Creative Nonfiction, CutBank Books). Allison’s prose appears or is forthcoming in Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, SmokeLong Quarterly, River Teeth, DIAGRAM, The Gettysburg Review, The Adroit Journal, Alaska Quarterly Review, West Branch, and elsewhere. Find her at allisonfieldbell.com
Emerge Literary Journal 