1. Apache Plume
The road is a drone note,
also known as a burden.
I traveled but a short distance,
late and thirsty, repeating
hold yourself empty,
hold yourself full.
2. Desert Sumac
Sun rising
like an elegant
tranquilizer,
considering
the hockey
stick curve
of carbon
emissions,
considering
the hundred
year flood
again this one,
considering
I turn red
when crushed.
3. Creosote
That under-employed boyfriend
you could smell approaching
all summer, strumming his guitar
played only one song:
I know you rider
& we play it again
for the ringtail, the rattler
the javelinas, even
a magnificant hummingbird:
gonna miss me when I’m gone.
4. Ocotillo
I keep thinking of the salt flats
& the great Neruda poem that says
I want no truck with death.
Once I asked a man what word
he would have chosen instead,
but he sped on toward Carlsbad.
Did you know truck comes from
the old French for barter?
I wonder how a translator chooses
between bear hug & strangle?
I didn’t say let’s make a deal.
Nights I still dream of the ocean,
waves big enough to drown
the engine that makes them.
The exposed shoulders of the reef
grow colder with the past. Something
told me if I waited long enough
I could have that back too.
