The Smell of Sand

by Emily Strauss

The city of Twenty Nine Palms coats
one dusty street
its sand smells like dry sun.
In winter the smell turns brittle
cactus spines blow against the lines
of broken fences bent south
under the prevailing gales
thorned by years of wind
that whitens the crying boards.

Next year at this time more fence
posts will split, the sand will pile higher
the sun will hurt more
this line in the sand defined by
old barbed wire.

There are none of O'Keefe's orange poppies here.

Will joshua trees survive another century?
Arms break off, cactus wrens abandon
old nest cavities— we can only stare.

Cold winter storms leave a thin frost
on palo verde leaves. The sand blows
harder, scraping the bark off acacia trees
down in the shallow arroyos that run
by the highway, smelling of friction
and a town on the edge.