Overlook
The valley sheds its hazy shawl at night,
becomes an electric incantation.
Inside, moths flicker in the stairwell light—
pale, dust-soft. The horse kicks her water trough
and underground, the bones of long-dead dogs
whittle thinner every year. Aspens quake
their silver fans, wind rings the tone-deaf chimes
and the hollow in my chest collapses,
a little. I’m tired and getting older
in this desert that did feel like home, once.
In spring, the sagebrush will powder its hair
saffron, and maybe things won’t seem so bleak
when the fields blush green for a week or two,
and thunder rips the placid sky in sheets.