Georgia O’Keeffe clouds
crowd the sky today—
some vast Southwest vista
empty, the god of rain away.
Why winter here Tlaloc?
Where the freeways run
with noise? Whole hillsides
lost to light quakes
or lit cigarettes?

On land scraped clean
before I was born
old freeways
with saint names
the numbers
I know.

Ahead a loose tarp
waves to cars
from a truck bed
flurries of petal hearts!
Drifts of blossom
obstruct lanes—
road and sky
a moment
the same.

Mellow with sun
and minerals
I stir the surface
of the pool—once
a water tank,
the concrete
dark now
with age.
Overhead palms sing
with orioles
and dead fronds
like vespers
in the valley wind.
So warm
I wait, patient
as a rattlesnake.
Night with her milky
wash of stars—
like other
desert animals
she too
drinks here,
far from anywhere.

Into your pockets
I stuff
loose magnolia petals
soft as old
dollar bills—
they bruise
easily. Miles above
the everyday
our glass car
trails hedione, molecules
too small to see,
that delicate earth scent
of love
and early spring.