Mirage 2012 GROWING OLD IN THE DESERT
Carmen Megeath
Out here it’s always 100 miles or at least 50— the sere earth, mountain islands, blue, rising up out of a mesquite-green desert sea— everything spined, spiked, tangled, thorned, and a horsetail sky streaming over this road which, straight as an arrow, flies toward the crossroads. The dun hills at the turnoff are hungry—their bones show through—their ridges, outcrops. How gracefully they lift themselves up, though, like a woman in a taffeta skirt rising from a chair. And dry yellow grasses crowding the road—nature’s hand ready to cover it all over. The yucca all but steps out onto the highway
72