lovers' covenant
didn't deepen the coveting
which wilted like an April flower
in their Sonoran May
Alberta, Nebraska, Mallorca
reveled in fresh chlorophyll
and brash poppyseed pheromones.
besotted, betrothed
become ... of ordinary
the aged are bowed
from decades-long hunch-fucking
bone-bent by
brocaded skin
decades of chasing astrophysicists
back down their rabbit holes
as the seasons dwindle down to numerable
past whirlwinds
new season narratives
polite attendants in thinning fields
unpersuaded
by the most plaintive of kisses
unplanted
swallowed by heat
rising up ruthless from the roadside
the more ignored, the more principled the clinging
and not to each other
asphalt, dust, saguaro skeletons
tumors, bottle caps, arrowheads,
'57 Chevy hubcaps,
all roadside shrines
enclosed by everything they couldn't think of
everything they had thought
at their point of impact
August 2011