On a New Mexico Night

by John Grey

Night must wonder
what it sees in desert air.

Meanwhile,
my fake adobe hut
slowly fills with another’s perfume.

Like saguaro,
it’s in no hurry.

Small rooms,
such a slim 
but space-filling woman –
I have lived with
this dollhouse effect
for as long as
I can remember.

It is most choice
at twilight
when heat departs
like a bright red sled
gliding on the backs
of rocks and lizards.

It leaves only silence,
moon-polished sands.
And clinking glasses of course.
Plus a shapely bottle of wine.

Night must wonder
what it’s doing here.
So few houses.
An emptiness to rival the sky.

But as long as there’s two people
living out here,
then night is needed.

With blackness all around,
the contrast can go ahead.

———

John Grey is an Australian poet and US resident. He was recently published in Midwest Quarterly, Poetry East and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in ,South Florida Poetry Journal, Hawaii Review and the Dunes Review.