NOVEMBER 5, 2017
You come because it demands attention.
It does not hold you softly, it does not feed you fat milk.
The desert has sharp needles for eyelashes. Globe mallow for hands.
It tells you:
Roll out a straw mat on the sand.
Fold yourself over and over now,
over and down,
pressing forehead to the earth.
Again and again bend before and in the face of it.
You are small here.
At sunset, put two hands together.
When the datura opens, build a fire.
Burn juniper to please the sky,
burn everything
also: you.
Tend it.
What remains, after the burning, is a small shadow,
or a record of where the light did not go.
NOVEMBER 18, 2017
someone’s hands arrange
one hard circle
someone’s teeth clatter
one small word
these days, there are some prayers
of average value
like:
please help me
or
please go
i can’t help those that
don’t know how to see
the way creosote yellows a little,
what sick looks like,
or how roundness sits pretty in the valley below