We Begin in Joshua Tree
The stars blew across the sky as if with a great gust the crystal dome and diamond dust. We sat up drinking soju my back leaning against your leg. Only the stars against a sky so black. I can't make meaning of this of what drew you toward me. You say you don't know. Good son, magnetic pole. Aria of fire and wood smoke. Coarse desert sand. The way your hand cradled the back of my head. We returned to the desert with the trees gnarled and ash green. I left before I could write an aubade. I dreamt my belly full of pregnancy. A clock tower tolling down the hours. When you coughed, did my stomach deflate? Did the mirage of the future appear fucked and penitentiary? Who are you to me? Cloud formation in an aura of blue. Mole at the center of a lip. Tonight the rock formations will rise while I sleep. This one a conqueror. This one a monument to the hope of forgetting. Out in the field, the wheat stalks called your name. Your hand cupped listening to a rustling like the sea. You ran toward the sound. Hands were pulling at you, like waves. Swells growing undulant and fat. We cursed the morning after seed scatter, wondered what living thing could possibly grow here.