Boom Times

Milton Jordan

July 6, 2025

Oil, boy, oil picked us up like a river 

at flood stage and we surged along

the current of it and rode the crest

of that river at high tide spitting

hands full of money with a common

disdain for every repeated warning.

We rode that surge into town and out

again to derricks in new fields

until the flow slid back to eddies

stagnant in backwater pools, boy, 

and we were factored out when

the bottom line was drawn above us.

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.