House Rock Valley, AZ

The white breath starting in only
after the dark exhale of birth. That’s
what day is here, and what night is

while in the tongue of sand, in the dry wash
the tamarisk lifts its thousand snarls
to the condor in the sky. Which hangs

like death’s finger against the blue, then falls
inside you like a stone. And at night,
in that push the dark makes out all night

the kangaroo rat follows the path
he makes. Like the river singing
about sacrifice. Against the way

the borders of our lives press in
on us all day. The antelope strung
through the barbed wire fence.

Rockfall. And the wind rising
above the sound of the highway,
which is like the feel of saltbrush

across your fingers. Though I want it
to be the hair on a dead cow. The cleft
air, the shadow beneath the falling block

of stone. The sound of gravity and ruin.
Because this place claws me open wide. Cleaves
me apart like prayer, like breath. And rolls

the boundaries back. The Colorado River
over there. The Vermilion Cliffs. The Kaibab
at my back, in its constant lying down.