Connie Wasem Scott

I come to know thirst

can be stuffed in a bag and carried
beyond the city’s rock walls, beyond the desert
arroyos sealed in cement and the alleys
where broken names and bottles
glisten like fresh paint.

My dogs sleep on the sandy cement
porch, far from the streets that never stop
grumbling, where the asphalt covers the ancient
seabed that perished long ago and
buried its bones in the sand.

As far as you can see a craggy range
of rocks butts the sky. Sunshine
hardens the landscape and grows
like lichen on my skin. I see the desert’s smaller
hands – tiny cloven leaves of the creosote bush,

a sand dune’s puckered hide. People
on both sides of the river dream
of crossing her bed. The sky
takes up more room here. A bride on the edge
of town rips off her lipstick and cries.

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Connie Wasem Scott lives in Spokane, WA, where she teaches the gamut of English classes at Spokane Falls Community College and enjoys the great outdoors with her Aussie-American husband. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Cathexis Northwest, Minerva Rising, Eclectica, Sycamore Review, RHINO and other journals.