She sings the desert quiet
and makes it rain.
Arroyos like arteries,
her heart overflows.
Colors turn dark: a healing bruise.
There’s a man with a book
in a dust-dry campground.
He shuts the cover,
moves up the hill.
Her tears flood the valley
where he meant to rest.
Colors, to him
the same in the night,
bleed through dreams
through no place to sleep.
His thoughts hold the time
that she washed away.
His mind holds the fences
against coyotes and scars,
against rocks blooming cactus,
rising scent of the road,
and he knows nothing–
more dangerous than hope.
Words and photo © Jaime Greenberg, 2022
