keep trying

Cactus, by Sharon Weiser

you give yourself to someone this way -
full of midnight light and the gold dust of the road
but he finds you other, amidst the ruins
that could be Egypt, Greece,
could be Bikini Atoll
after they duped the natives

you have given him the wheel
and slid over to the side,
the humming motor still running on last chance Texaco,
and summer burning all around, turning the red cactus flowers
into dried brown fingers,
and he promises to take the curves gently,
to not turn on the radio,
to drive just till the top of the mountain,
to let you take over -
just where the clouds are gathering,
just where the lurking storm has shifted with summer fickle -
as if for the first time,
as if for the last try

miriam adelman