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.