Kitt Keller

This is red rock sensibility: Laura picks feathers
out of her hair and whispers, He loves me. He loves me

not. Too much time is spent twisting spanners – a clock
can be wound and rewound, but if you say, Eat me; drink me,

those old melted watches will reform, and you will be left ticking.
Laura walks widdershins toward the door, opens it

for Nobody, who never comes. I am anxiety.
You are opalescence. Laura is the wine glass on the shelf.

Time opens up caverns in the earth. Laura watches jackrabbits
as they hopscotch through the desert, in and out of wormholes.

The air is slithering and malformed, brimming with junipers.
This is red rock hard time: serving sunny side up in the diner,

never scrambled, filling out the crossword with floating anagrams.
We don’t eat apple pie here. We take our coffee black,

clocking in and out while lightning strikes in Boynton Canyon;
burns sand into glass in the desert, startles Gila monsters,

who clamber out from under rocks that are still warm
and lick the slow smell of creosote out of the humid air.

Laura cuts a piece of cake – counts clouds and flying saucers;
clears cups. She says, This town is a Faraday cage. I say, Eat up.

Kitt Keller is a poet living in a yellow brick house in Tempe, AZ. An Arizona girl born and raised, she recieved an MFA in poetry from Arizona State University. Her work has appeared in Four Chambers, Narrative Magazine, Ghost Town, and HOOT.