Even the Mojave has plenty––dunes
moon-white in moonlight, indigo space
so full of stars they powder it like tunes
from planet radio, prayers from Grace
Cathedral, Shao Lin, Tibet. Perkins sells
desert seeds, outwitting water-storing lizards
whose tail-flick paths zigzag electrical
blue, and sand-camouflaged mice with built-in
backpacks. He’s frugal, selling a drought garden’s
worth in biscuit-colored, canvas sacks––
like lava bits, pepper motes, avid dust.
Here, he can hear a snake ripple the slough
of wheat-colored sand, a hawk riding updrafts.
He banks on the given: un-owned, shriven.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 18, Issue 2.
Mary Moore has work in Birmingham Poetry Review, Unsplendid, and Drunken Boat, Prairie Schooner, Negative Capability and more. Her first collection, The Book of Snow, was published by Cleveland State University in 1997.
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