Somewhere in Arizona

dusk swallowed the day
we spent in gold-red dirt
tracing rocks with unsteady feet
where each thin-air breath
seemed as tentative as tomorrow.

So we slowed our pace, you and I,
we who brought our wounded selves
to each other, paused to feel
the earth’s arms around us

when down in the clearing
like a child’s painting splashed
onto a concrete page, the doe
took center stage—just a whisper,
watery legs sufficient,
her elegant head arced downward.
She knew I watched. She didn’t care
how I envied her vulnerable assurance
and why she arrived uninvited,
I do not know

nor did I invite heaven
at day’s end
to throw stars
from light years away
onto a sky black pavement,
to slash the night sky with shards
of daylight to stab empty fields.

Marsha Owens spent her career in public education and survived teaching English to middle schoolers. Now happily retired, she attends writing classes, teaches workshops, and writes for her own learning pleasure. Her poems and essays have appeared at NewVerseNews, thewildword, Rat’s Ass Review, and in the anthology, Life in 10. She lives in Richmond, VA, not far from the peaceful Chesapeake Bay.

Featured image: Antelope Canyon by Vicente Villamón. CC license.