"Night on Desert" by Dominika Aniola.
© Please do not reproduce without artist's permission.
DESERT
by Lesley-Anne Evans
This is what I want to say
in the incremental darkness,
in this ease of speech waiting
for our eyes to adjust. You know
the way daylight burns off sound
as it leaves the throat, but night
gives purple shadowed invitations
to light feet
and the opening blooms
of midnight speech. Dry wind
carries word from
mesa crest to the gullied floor
in a desert place
that holds liquid silver.
Here in the welcoming un-dark
we unfurl to moon moisture,
stretch slick over topics, tremble
with ears perked and turning
to possibility on wings, spliced cries
of what must be said or swallowed whole.
We cauterize wounds by laying on hands
under moon’s pale benediction,
a communion of common flesh.
Dawn rises dry eyed,
its breath parching
the bloodied ground,
our nocturnal conversation
like a desert creature, scurried
into day, settled into silence.
Lesley-Anne Evans is Belfast born, Toronto raised, and lives in Kelowna, B.C. with her husband, three children, and dog. Her poetry appears in The Antigonish Review, CV2, UBCO’s Lake, Ascent, Sage-ing, Quills, an Oak Leaflet, and a Leaf Press collection edited by master poet Patrick Lane. http://laevans.ca
