not sure what to do with this yet
This Desert Life
When the toes turn blue and the radiator
stands--an ice hunk of metal, unmoved, it's time
to move to Florida. Or Arizona, California, Baja,
Cabo--anywhere but here and now.
There was a desert you visited once, when names like Route 66
meant life un-lived, littered with refuse: cattle bones, saguaros,
dust. Taking off your shoes the red clay stuck, sinking into
your feet like so many cuts of blood. And the vultures--
you noticed them too--how their baldness unlike an eagle's
seemed somehow a curse. Psoriasis or mange for the unsavoury--
the scavengers in life.
In a taxidermy exhibit when you were in high school, a local
news reporter asked you what it was like to see one up close,
close enough to feel like prey. "They mate for life," you said.
As if something so unwanted would have no other choice.
When the toes turn blue and the radiator
stands--an ice hunk of metal, unmoved, it's time
to move to Florida. Or Arizona, California, Baja,
Cabo--anywhere but here and now.
There was a desert you visited once, when names like Route 66
meant life un-lived, littered with refuse: cattle bones, saguaros,
dust. Taking off your shoes the red clay stuck, sinking into
your feet like so many cuts of blood. And the vultures--
you noticed them too--how their baldness unlike an eagle's
seemed somehow a curse. Psoriasis or mange for the unsavoury--
the scavengers in life.
In a taxidermy exhibit when you were in high school, a local
news reporter asked you what it was like to see one up close,
close enough to feel like prey. "They mate for life," you said.
As if something so unwanted would have no other choice.