I
In April summer arrives
facedown. The sun is cruel
but not as cruel as the moon
whose mad face offers comfort.
To be comforted by such a moon
is to walk barefoot through groves
of crippling cholla, scourged
by ocotillo, and crouch all night
in a dry arroyo, howling
like a coyote in search of love.
2
A chaparral hen nests
in the palo verde, alert and still.
Her mate watches from the false
nest they have built to fool
their enemies. Tonight a coyote
is a dark haze five feet
below them. They do not move
or blink their eyes. A rabbit
screams. The glowing shadow
moves past with something dripping
from its mouth. Another shadow stops
to lick the stones, then follows.
3
Three months without rain.
Crazed with thirst, the quail
peck at bits of clear glass
beside the road. Coyotes
and the great cats can quench
their thirst with blood, but where
can the deer find water? What
nourishes the lichen on these stones?
Nature at the mercy of nature,
and man without mercy, the nature
of man. I am secondary
among the primary sources, trying
to save myself from love and other
dangers, trying to hold still.
4
Watched closely by the birds,
I gather the things a man needs
to build his strange nest:
stones for a wall, sand
for mortar, the ribs of dead
saguaros for a roof. A dry
country is for those who choose it,
for those who are fragile
and beat down by such gentle rain.
Today a hot wind wrung me dry.
It died at sunset. Now the road
is white as lime and the desert bleaches
under the moon, all bone and shadow,
the floor of a star-filled sea.
Comfort me with anything but the moon:
salt for a cracked lip, an old
shirt which has lost my shape
but remembers my odor. I know
where my edges are, where I cease
and the desert night begins.
I never broke the rules; the rules
broke me. If I wear protective
coloring, the costume of survival,
it is because I was not equipped
with sharp enough teeth. I have
seen the gods and they are ruthless.
Leave a Reply