desert – A Long Perspective

There is no end to the darkness above my face –
the darkness, moonless and without stars.

Below me, a small mound of palest light
fits stark and clean on the root of night.

No movement sensed in the silence,
no other face or hand,

as if a newborn were laid asleep among the dunes,
she awakens wild with cold,

and the mother has turned away for the last time.

FEWalls

Apricot Moon

Ignition on, the key worn down

almost straight now,

on the dashboard,

a pack of Camels

lying on maps among rock samples

and tufts of tamarisk.

Shirtless, you lean forward, turn the key,

a birthmark flutters over your 6th vertebra,

the engine roils in the guts of the Subaru,

purple-gray mountains in the distance.

We lurch through corridors of sand, pitted tracks,

past tiny signs to Fault Wash, Vista del Malpais,

a hard right, the key falls to the mat,

the motor, oblivious, roars on.

At the cliff, the clawed Badlands before us

baked reddish-gold, dusk gathers up the warmth

and the waxing gibbous moon rises.

We lie on our backs in the sand,

the trajectory of our eyes lifts to Perseus,

son of Zeus, who rode the winged stallion,

and fights on in the night sky.

We dream the stories of the ancients

from this cluster of our beginnings.

FEWalls