There’s a little place in the desert where people used to go

There’s a little place in the desert where people used to go
where the screen door batters its frame in unpredictable staccato
and upturned glasses fill the tables where no one’s dined in years.
This is the last stop for gas between a car and the buzzards
on a road where even the rain doesn’t stop anymore.

Once there was a cabin on a stream and every morning
the purest air blew unhindered through two open doors
and the fresh scent of a jade jungle of leaf
and running water—wild and tender plants
willing to lie beneath us like lovers

Just to touch us they lay down
so enamoured with our presence
they caressed and kissed our soles and sighed,
the mud clutched us and we were whole again,
away from the clutter of striving striking voices

away from the violent city, the horrific brutality,
the shock of the real, the rage of the litterer and vandal
the screaming of the hungry and those dispossessed,
banging their bleeding fists on love when the door was open
all the time. Open. That’s what love is.

If only I were worthy to send this but my hands are battered
and bruised from the punching you’ve received as if my fists
could distill love from your blood. Loathe you? I never knew
how to open the door that bangs in the desert place where I wait
listening for you with the glasses turned upside down
————————————————————————to keep them from the dust.

© Dan Goorevitch 2008