April 2, 2025Pima Canyon
Do I look scrawny? Elizabeth asked, on her miserable Parkinson’s diet,
no more foods she loved, she wasn’t supposed to drink
but she was drinking a little, red wine, because you can’t forgo everything,
and you can’t secrete a protective layer like a tree frog
or stay still as a cottontail or pretend you’re a stick or rock or flower
to keep yourself safe, the world seeps in no matter what.
Plastics in rain, microwaves, x-rays, all the invisibles, dry-cleaning chemicals
damaging cells in your brain. My whole childhood, my brothers and I slept
under cheap electric blankets. We could have erupted in flames.
You can’t go back to being a girl, having a smaller shadow, running shirtless
through the weedy yards to dodge whatever’s waiting for you in the dark
beneath your bed. Here in the desert the mountains glow every evening,
the saguaros grow spiny and upright, pocked with nest holes. Today, on the trail,
quail rustle in the mesquite, a coyote trots away down a dry wash, stopping to look back
with its yellow eyes. Poor coyote, it won’t live very long in the wild.
Ask the canyon how long before my friend’s tremor worsens and she can’t
write her name. Ask the planes, painting their dirty contrails on the sky,
one headed for the airport, one droning toward the military base.
Maybe we should let our hair go gray, Elizabeth says, stopping to adjust her hat.
Her black hair looks wet in the sun. Maybe, I say. But not yet, darling. Not yet.
from #87 - Spring 2025
