Down on our sand, and danced, if not
For me, at least alluringly,
Like you cared enough to cast me
In your spell. In reality, you had the house
And an ex and a boarder with a retriever
Who left the TV on all night
While you drank pinot noir in total darkness
When the desert crackled outside —
Your makeup showed her face
In the invasions of moon through your window
As you shared dark chocolate and darker eyes
And a spacious enough couch for the biggest ideas
And a voice that wanted to believe all my lies.
But the cactus outside was inside too,
In the turquoise pastels and copper fires
Of your refuge, as you held me
The only way you knew how, at a distance,
But not the one beyond the housing tracts,
Where not even jackrabbits can hide
And all things blow into puncturing traps.
All of my friends soon ran for the hills
And gas log fires, cats in windowsills
And pools, as if this holiday would last
And there was no such thing as Sun Ra
Or psilocybin in the Third Mesa red.
The desert woman warned I was a fool
To look back, like Lot, for a wife.
