Sierra Vista, AZ

Sierra Vista, AZ

Just before dawn, I fold back
the sheets, open the windows.
Ravens hunch on the roofs
and the stoplights,
they steal bread from dumpsters
in the small hours, share it
between hungry mouths.

In a sun bleached hotel
our rent a car ticks
in Western time;
we cling like the Tohono O’odom
to a bare neck of the land,
sleep in the crook of its arm.

This part of the year, the desert is green—
Spirals of ocotillo,
prickly pear cactus like a mime’s hands
in the knife-edged agave.

We are tourists again,
canyon dust under our shoes.
While the smile of the horizon
breaks with conifers,
the sunrise bruises up blue
and ravens ink up the day
at the base of the Huachuca mountains.