10-year-old Arizona summer
The hedges were too green for that ground, brown and cracking like newspaper from the back of grandmother's closet;
the pool, curved like a sleeping fetus, too deep for that sky, bright and flat, painted by number--
suspicious,
all of it smacked of mirage or worse, enchantment...
There was a wall
and beyond that, nothing but dry ocean: tangled weeds blew like shriveled mermaid's hair, leaked through the iron gate I pressed my face against, inside surrounded by false trees. I craved
empty space
and spines: mountains grinning like Coyote over ground burned down to sharp edges and fractures out where you can see them coming a universe away.