Poem: Walking Stick/The Other Side of the Dam

You've come so we can have sex tonight. But first,

I show you my Saguaro cactus walking stick, hidden

in the corner near my bed, I ensure the dog won’t chew

the thumbhold I’ve worn into its tip during solo hikes

in deserts, there are stories about this pole to tell you,

impatient, wanting to kiss me, tongue the lay of my

body's geography, sand my skin with your wirey beard.

And first, the story of the Saguaro cactus, pointing its

prayer-barbed arms to the sky uniformly, solid but not,

they are thick with center, crowned occasionally in canopies

of white-flowered heads soaked in the June downpour, owls

nestled in their hollowed out core while the rain is absorbed.

Some years ago, on a morning walk on the non-California side

of Boulder Dam, I mined a vein of arm from one fallen tree,

half as thick as my wrist, amazing sponge, fat as Lake Mead.

I lovingly sanded it down to its finest grain, soaked it

repeatedly on advice of a male friend wise in such things,

with oil of linseed, let it dry completely out. He told me

I’d have a walking stick, a perfect, balancing companion.

With the thick of your carpenter’s palm pressing into my hand,

rough and eager, you reach into me as sudden as a quick rain,

with your electrified saguaro arm heavy and thick, not yet

exposing me to the tangles and barbs and odd birds of your skin,

expansive, but not quite full at the core, preparing for drought.

July 24, 2008

copyright - Ruth Nolan