Lavender Pit

It's hard to find a safe place to lay my
head at the macho crotch of America
where Mexico pushes against a tight
zipper that some call a safe border,
where the hills once looked as inviting
as women's rounded hips and bellies.

In the old days, sweaty miners came
here to dig their fortunes of turquoise
and lavender-colored stones, leaving
a colorful pit in the ground half a mile
deep, and long vertical mine shafts now
boarded with rusty signs that warn "no
trespassing. It is important to stay awake.

This is a still a grizzle-bearded landscape
where barefoot, long-haired men who
don't have phones sip milky coffee, where
lazy dogs nap in the sun, not scratching
for fleas. I am 35 now, too young to be
a mother, and too old to offer a flat belly
and hilly breasts to the hot customers.

My skin has begun to dry for want of touch
and you have already shrunk inside of me
and sleep while I watch a giant brown moth
crawl from beneath the splintered roof
of my old miner's shack and shed its gauze-
colored cocoon. I watch for illegal aliens
who might be hiding in my cactus garden
while I paint my fingernails dark green

and watch the gangly thing struggle to dry
its outsized wings. I wonder if the open
heart of this town will fill with water, if
the moth will ever fly, when the fat June
monsoon flowers will give me fists of rain.

by Ruth Nolan