No, Don't Go Out
Car gliding gently, whirling down
Mountain engine idling fine
Tall pines flying in circles
Going on for a circumnavigatingly long time
Around the world, no houses
Around the trees, no world
Buzzcut for a boy
Frizz for a girl
Reaching the highway
Open your mouth
To the north and south sierra mountains
Grey and jagged brown
Up and down a heartbeat trace
Across the curve of the world
Right at the gas station, water bottles rattle
The road a narrow vein on the dusty ochre desert skin
Lean with your elbow out till you’re halfway down the globe
Till the car door’s on fire and you can’t take any more
Time to not think about anything
To feel the humming engine’s spirit lift
Chassis growing wings out wide and tyres thrusting wanting air
And, suddenly you’re up there, legs as light as oxygen
Heart pounding, face beaming, spirit going up up
Body begging to come down down
Mouth not knowing whether to be open or shut
Back gently to earth
Turn off to Joshua Tree's dusty ribbon highway
Desert swelling of the mind
Dead reckoning of the blind holy hills
The way they sway rocks in the red in the heat
And the gravel with the chirp and play
Of the desert insect sea
And the sun falls so quick
Once white now dark the world glows deep
With colours rose and mint
Put up the tent
My girlfriend and me
Hear the first coyotes yowl
I get a flashlight and go to the trunk
See a hairy limb in the side of the beam
Flip round see a tarantula crawl towards my feet
Torch turns to check around and see a hundred other
Feeling fingers, fur and fangs
Twitching, marching, swarming from the rocks
Go back to the tent
And zip that mother up, check the flap
What’s up? says my girlfriend. Everything ok?
Oh, yeah, I say, just making sure no mosquitos get in
I’ll get my toothbrush, she says
No, don’t go out, darling, I say.
Let's do that in the morning.
Copyright © Diane Leggett | Year Posted 2023
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