Already Noon

by David Chorlton
 
The air’s a friendly buzz
and breath is honey
on the desert trail that feels
its way from spring
to early summer and the cool
interiors where flickers
raise their young in a saguaro
 
or the point
at which to decide between the knowledge
of coyotes or the garter
snakes who occupy
the narrow world the news
doesn’t reach; not the overnight
shooting, not
the lines along the southern border
where heat
 
comes begging for asylum,
and not the storms that pass
between the races. Nothing here
is ever broken; it just
collapses and decays like
dry mesquite and cactus hearts
 
soaking up the sunlight
even when it stings.