I’ve seen it in mourning doves, lizards, once a coyote and once a rat that when I approached they exhibited a relaxed curiosity young ones yet to receive their most important teaching, a lesson on survival by fear the older ones who watch from up in a tree or under a bush know they can do nothing apparently in every species there are good students and slow learners with reality as the teacher whose only grades are pass or fail

this may look like a drought in any other place, here it’s simply July in the desert the lengthy landscape of frog choirs along the creek are gone, some crowded into the drainage swill at the walk bridge many are buried in the mud now encrusted and safe in a mucous bubble as the stream bed has long died from thirst I wonder how they decide who stays up and who goes under who continues to splash and sing and who postpones those pleasures you know, I wouldn’t mind hiber

words ripped from darkness by sharpened teeth and spit like hailstones in red rain there are many victims, including the dead and wounded moments of peace even the sun will peek out from behind a cloud, deciding whether to shine on that a vampire may cage himself on a full moon night but this beast curls up in an unlocked closet, always kicked awake, red-eyed and unstoppable