Back Country
Past the foot of Joshua Tree,
facing east:
Hell's Kitchen lies
marked by scatterings
of wiry creosote;
occasional shacks
inhabited by hard-bit
desert rats.
The flat-pan floor
stretches to the distance,
buttes and mountains sway
in rising shimmers.
Old Route 66 dances
on subtle undulations
that remind
this was the bottom of the ocean
and will be again
some day.
Time compresses and expands;
the sky rolls from the west;
is burned off by the sun;
salt water will follow.
What then crawls
from the mud?
