by Charlie Glick
for Evelyn
We came back to the city
with the desert on our skin, dusted
with the light that curves
across the granite back of the Mojave,
the kind of light you can smell.
That night I dreamed I stood
beneath the grandmother tree,
the emerald air was thick
like the undersea, I was horrified, beatified:
I woke up glowing, full of words for you.
Do you remember walking through the meadow
last November in Delaware, it was dusk, the sun cut
over the poplars and fading goldenrod,
and we held each other, pressed
our faces together? Will I not hold you
there forever? When did I turn so sour?
Choppers are circling the neighborhood again,
nothing’s changing or it’s getting worse,
look at us, fuck me, this dopamine rush
when we open a fresh box of N95s.
I’m not that depressed, you know, I’m all right,
especially in the mornings and when we walk
among mountains, pointing at hawks and jays,
sweating, amazed, hungry. I wonder
if I’ll know how to die when the time comes,
like a cat on a ranch, no fuss,
and will you be there with me,
emerald eyes, my soul, above me
bright in the cave of your black hair falling.
So I wait like water pooling as we scrub
the dust from our skin and roll into bed
with arms for each other and memories
of Mojave winds, sungold ice on dead flowers,
a desert with its back to the sky
and its hands clasped together far underground.
Charlie Glick is a writer and musician living in Port Townsend, WA. Born in Delaware, he spent his 20s touring North America with his band Sure Sure. Lately, he works on a farm and talks about the weather. His non-fiction and poetry has appeared in Wilderness House Literary Review and is forthcoming in Thimble Lit Magazine.