to be high

I want to be high on

thinnest breath as

I lay my pillow on rock

by the saguaro, with my head

inside those linear shadows

momentarily forgotten –

how I need these very words –

I want to be high on

need, coming up dry while

the diaphragm pumps away

how I would lie for a language, cheat

and manipulate, how I would throw

my self onto the saguaro or

turn a hoodoo into goose down,

I’ve done it before, gone prostrate

on a thing thousands of years in the

making, and I would do it again,

take a word or two, neglect

their etymon, patch them

with silence,

and defy the natural law

how I would plunge

into the desert belly first chest

to follow, like a piston

and get my fix from a place

unseen.

original photography by kaitlin deasy