And after the dream of continuance dis-

continued, after mortality swelled like

a larval gall breaking the skin of normalcy—

what then? We drove into an arid sea

of solitudes from rift valleys to peaks I’d

seen only from certain windows. Beyond

arroyos and hills obscuring empty malls

junipers strutted up transition zones,

while in low glades gripping cliff debris

wintering mule deer tore at sun-coated

oak leaves with their teeth. I thought yes

I could eat the dry light here though my gaze

tended now toward the criss-crossed signs,

the more-than/less-than symbols of pines

downed by unpredicted snow. You slunk

into a dust-throated cave and reappeared 

under light recast by ice clouds. I took

the sun dogs above us for us—two nodes

in cirrus horsetails—as we sped up-crest

to watch light sink behind the bristlecones,

their needles and slow resin accruing

by a forest of radio towers transmitting

whatever urgent news we could not hear

over high winds swimming with ravens.

—for DS

—Radha Marcum

Poet’s Website

< BACK | NEXT >

TABLE OF CONTENTS