It was hot, again, today,
in the desert Southwest.
The Monsoon is unusually late,
creating a miasma of
heat-related thoughts. Of
scorpion tales and rattlesnake dreams.
Of Gila Monster bites
and tarantula-walking heights.

The rabbits lay tepidly panting,
in the late afternoon shade. I
was sitting on the picnic table,
feeling gravid with arid weight.
The misters were on
in the tree branches, above,
and the errant breeze actually carried
its hopeful lode towards me,
instead of away.

The sun was slanted through the
thorned shrub above my cliff-backed garden,
soon to leave the confines of my backyard
on its heated voyage into night’s Eros-lushness.
Nighttime is when the desert thrives
in the summer. Cat forms were strewn lazily
about the yard, looking unconcerned.

The mist of the water fell upon my shoulders,
creating tingling appreciation of its essence.
I raised my right arm, up into the tiny atoms
of mist droplets, loving the feel of the water
on my parched skin. I could see the tiny hairs
on my arm, each illuminated by light. And,
I felt alive, I felt divine, for a few seconds, anyway.

I saw the prismatic principal of water gather,
in individuality, above the surface of my skin,
captured by innocuous hairs, admired its
sensuous cover. All of a sudden, the kiss
of sunshine rays exploded the liquid sheen,
into fragmented rainbows, flooding my soul
with serendipity.

For a moment, one of 'those' moments, I
beheld magic within my form, but, as we all know,
reality devours magic, and precipitates what we wish
were illusions.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 7/9/05