qarrtsiluni

Glittering glass and ragged cans
Tumble and dive in a ravine
Talking to me in metered
Morse code of orange desert eye.
I seek signs.

Downwind grayed coyote
Skips straight ahead, scroungy
Mane awry in a matted mess.
My dad would have said
That critter is poor
When broke meant lean.

He’s seen better days —
When the cottontails
And voles leapt in his mouth
In the moon’s light and dew
Swam a river’s vista, ran further
Downstream and was glad.

These four wheels and static
Slash through mean creosote —
All I want is shade.
Relief from shimmering heat —
It shape-changes my hope
And pools green under the car.

Purple ranges simmer ahead.
I expect smoked pipe
And exhaust to catch up and swirl
Like a dust devil before a squeal
Of gravel arcs and sputters.
Your words hot and coarse

Untrue and mean with
None of the grandeur of that
Joshua tree but all the pride
Of a scorpion. Arched back
Showing how manly you are
You pierce my skin.

Solace in silent skies
Blue as your eyes and the ache
In my parched heart sighing —
Breezing past a shot-up stop sign —
Erodes clear signs of respite lost
With that last sip of sweet tea.

by Deb Scott

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