two bickering sparrows we’re not nor as silent as paired mourning doves we’re something blended for life we’re the eagle couple that looks out for each other eggless with our graying feathers but not nestless he likes to move sticks around, often coming home with new ones and dumping the old when he flies off I salvage the rejected, tuck them back in and hope he forgets

the most dazzling pots have severely cracked porcelain your beautiful flaws

people now cover cactus as trees are frying to a crisp air conditioners run day and night it’s too hot to swim dogs’ feet burn and ours’ are back in the house by 8am someday this desert will return to its moonscape with the bones of homes, cracked divots of pools, a giant crumbling museum of walls, fences and dead trees fireplaces that still stand will be guarding ghosts long gone and the sand will return to cover all evidence that joy once lived here