Mojave Concrete Blonde

Water is somewhere, water in places
Sweet and secret lizards flick and pick along the rocks
You can see the sharp sword of the yucca here
And the steel wool creosote
Something moves off to the left of the road
And a little flag made of an In-N-Out Burger bag
Is blown into a cholla and shredded into shit
By the late afternoon desert gusts

But when the sun sets…
When the sun sets, we are all in agreement
The distant, dusty mounds carefully chorеograph
Their royal purples in a perfеct dust
With the far-valley leap and explosion of gold and red
We reflect the sky for you, the mountains say
And bow like Chinese wise-men

And we, for you, say the facing hills
Rough and crumbled
But for collaboration, location and luck
They are a pile of gold this hour
The edges of the picture turning royal blue
Liquid-slow, deeper and deeper
And the lights in the sky who’d been there all along
Blink brighter and brighter