December
For Michaela
1.
A hare slips
into scrub juniper. Sparse snow. Wind
whorls the ear. Music
of the long night.
Time of year when the self loses
grip.
What looks out of your eyes
on these nights walking home from work?
 |
| Rio Grande Gorge, Near Taos, New Mexico |
2.
When I touch the side of your face, I touch
the ceremony sometimes:
A horsefly dives.
Raven’s shadow crosses slick rock.
Bleached juniper roots surround a
flat stone.
We wrote poems, read them out loud,
passed
the wind-coiled
salted curves
of strata’d sandstone, limestone,
grey-green-maroon
oxidation of iron, and ocean-side fossil-crush
of leaf and fern,
back and forth,
lip
to mouth, then
back-to-back bowed –
South, East, North, West -
cities of the underworld on the distant broken
cliff-face
suddenly
exposed.
 |
| East Alameda Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico |
3.
Necro-pink
Duende-rose
Raven-blue
The
colors deepen to blood-orange to night
in the blood.
We stand inside a map of veins
through naked trees.
Last
night,
we
were a room of woven roots.
4.
A raven
sits on the Vitamin Cottage sign above us
Glass
doors open and close for no one
Wind
ruffles his head feathers, black beak open
Voice like
the scrape of a cold branch against glass
Prophet
of the desert’s return
Our dark
joy
 |
Notes
The "ceremony" in section 2 refers to our wedding ceremony, out in the Canyonlands country of Southeastern Utah.
"Vitamin Cottage" in section 4 refers to a chain grocery store in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Merry & Happy
******************
Upcoming in January
A new short story
in
(Britain's longest running - and best - sci-fi magazine)
