The Hobart dish machine subsides
as sun smolders behind the cliffs.
Bats stutter from the arroyo;
voices swirl, entangle, dissipate
in the breeze drifting up from the Chama.

We run to the alfalfa field
below dark hulks of mesas,
fall entangled in the loam,
trace the drumming in our blood
back to its source.

Spill of sunset evaporates from sky.
Lights blaze among cottonwoods
where rustlers were hanged
and brujos prowled the shadows
in search of wayward children.

Meteors scratch our retinas,
one flares so hot it sizzles,
leaving a green streak
suspended, for a moment,
before it fades.

Our bodies tilt the world
until, no longer looking up,
we’re looking down,
barely held from falling
into the Milky Way.

Through the night,
in the space between stars,
more stars appear,
then more between them,
until all the darkness burns.

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Roger Midgett has had poems published in exhibition, Pontoon, and Presence. He was first runner-up for the 2006 Return to Creativity Poetry Awards. His poem, Passage, was set to music by composer Paul Lewis as part of The Last Poem On Earth: A Jazz Oratorio, that had its world premiere in May of 2007. Roger works as a Mental Health Professional and lives with his family on an island across Puget Sound from Seattle.
Website: http://www.myspace.com/rogermidgett
 

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summer 2007 | kaleidowhirl
books and chapbooks from authors in this issue