XXThe Hiss Quarterly || Volume IV, Issue 3

ISSN 1556-245X

David Chorlton

Colour

If your first view of the desert
was a western
on black-and-white TV
viewed far away while rain
splashed against the window

and if that view included
lonely men riding
their ambitions between cactus
that grew taller then they could

and if wildlife there consisted
of vultures coming out of the sky
to feed on whomever
rattlesnakes had poisoned
on the ground

and if the climate was an enemy
more dangerous than the people
who had lived here
for centuries

when you finally reach it
the colour will strip your memory clean
and leave you standing
with a thirst so sharp
it hurts your tongue
to repeat a lie.

© David Chorlton

The Way Back

The high trail is a thread beneath the sun
coiling and climbing
rocks interspersed with flowers
bursting open from a mesh
of needles on a cactus resembling
a smile with shallow roots.
It follows the black hawk and the raven
with a sprinkling of light
for the edges of their wings. We follow
it to the crest where it takes
a dark turn and is lost
in a tangle spreading out
from the creek with its liquid voice
saying

this is the way come into the shadows
you will be lost here and the way
back doesn’t exist it leads forward it never
ends it just changes direction until you
are back where you started where you thought
you were before you knew you were wrong