I A M A N A T U R A L B L U N D E R (evaporite)

She said I knew we weren’t careful
enough that night. That’s the final

form of wanting. On the way to her
mother before us: two mesas. 412, the

road to Dodge City, west: the sun in
the rearview the first hundred miles,

the red clay of the Cimarron behind
selenite. Or else, if by six he meant

six, breakfast in Woodward, the sun
breaking as we drove between them.

Young, I knew want as she did: a trail
up past the plateau’s edge that I never

climbed, unlike my brothers. I said I
won’t go ’til there is someone to come

down, someone to push aside the order
of things.

***************

Each night I go to bed, one sleep atop
another. The days pass, the days pass,

a stack of nights like a book. Every
dress hung over my desk-chair, and

I, the ever-present, my hand beneath
what falls before me. Not unlike the

mesa, I am not, without what I shed,
myself. A curious thing, and a wonder:

Who are you, brother, now you come
down from the hill? That rock in your

hand: temper me like it: from above:
remove: I found the desert rose in

clusters under the wheels here. Yours
is clear. Put it to the car window:

another set of lines. Now put your
eye to it: another platform in a city

somewhere else.

*

Michael Lala curates the Fireside Follies series in Brooklyn and writes on Katelan Foisy.