Pointillist II (Day 436)

Breathe hush wind beach fog 

Petal cup hand abundant kiss

Slice green point edge damp

Electric shiver ice steel frost

Marine slough clear shimmer curl 

Breath flow gurgle chime rocks

Bird floral bittersweet wing dust

Knowing warmth wait send tucked

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Patterns of the superbloom 

at Carrizo Plain National Monument 

Bureau of Land Management/ Flickr

In the Second Place (Day 431)

...in the first place, she said 

to the window, the violet desert 

night, her flushed face mirrored 

back in a reflection, where their 

eyes met. And, in the second, 

you don’t even know who I am. 

A swell of annoyance, or maybe 

it was boredom, lifted her off 

her feet for a few seconds, and 

suddenly, she could see herself 

from outside, from out there where 

stormclouds of stars piled up on 

the horizon, where a hot wind 

sipped sweat from your skin so 

quickly you never felt a prickle, 

where that silvery road unwound 

like a mystery, northward, over 

a series of rocky hills.

Outside, where the scrub brush 

met the drive, two glowing green 

eyes appeared like magic. They 

seemed to be looking directly at 

her, shimmering in rising waves of 

ambient heat. She gazed back, 

momentarily unaware of the man 

waiting for her to further explain 

herself. The green eyes blinked 

once, twice—then vanished as 

she stepped out into the evening

closing the door firmly behind her.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: fancycrave1/Pixabay

Just a glimpse (Day 407)

Once a smooth 

emerald-velvet breast

—where silver lights 

played and twigs rattled, 

concrete crackled, 
and sometimes,
sweetness sang
—deserts now splinter 

into angry glass, newly 

mown sand transformed 

by a blast of blazing 

heat such as the world 

has seldom known.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Sand dunes in Rub' al Khali, Arabia's "empty quarter". 
Acquired by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission 
and Reflection Radiometer, or ASTER, aboard 
NASA's Terra Earth-orbiting satellite.

Moonscape (Day 401)

The artist's fingers seek and find  squelched

deep inside his rumpled linen coat 

the lawyer’s letter (signature required)  

growing damp and crumpled  there

he stands and draws his few visitors toward 

the glass   chilled by cold drafts tugged helplessly

into thin indentations   where beyond 

crackled windows   a golden moonscape glows  

a leaf grows here   a twig dries there  lizards 

lounge companionably   trying to warm their skin

in watery sunlight  requiring nothing more than 

an opportunity to taste the apple-scented air

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Sahara Desert (wislamos/Pixabay)

Reclaimed (Day 353)

Reclaimed by the wind

this hot air, knocked down

hard hand in mine, 

lifeless rain leaks from 

the clouds, faceless seconds 

trickling down 

the slopes of a slow hour,

snowcaps slipping into the sea,

descending the ladder of souls,

while fertile land grows arid

in our climbing sun’s vice-like grip.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: 12019/Pixabay

Upriver (Day 352)

They say fondness 

makes the heart 

grow absent.

Well, you’re miles away 

in a driving rain,   

telling me you’re sorry 

from the middle 

of a desert, 

under a flotilla 

of amethyst clouds.

Never again will I let on 

that I love you—

you never believed me

when I said it out loud.

You built your dam upriver 

from my valley, and 

that water’s not going 

to trickle down again.

The shadows grow longer 

even earlier now, and 

we’ll never be as green 

as we were back then.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Skeeze via Pixabay

He Cannot Pronounce Her Name (Day 311)

Unsayable, a scree of consonants

piled up at the base, he cannot

pronounce her name. Love, dear,

darling, forever come simply and

easily as sugar in coffee, 

the way she fixes it for him 

in the morning while he showers, 

rinsing off the night’s dreams, 

that dark oily scent clinging 

to the steam, making his mouth 

water like it does when he wants

 to kiss her unglossed lips 

the way they are in the morning 

when she wakes up, rosy 

and puffy with sleep, warm 

as a winter fire after a midnight walk 

on new snow, when the world 

glows bright as a full moon, 

and the drifts shimmer, casually

heaped against the fences,

already pitted, collapsing 
like those consonants at the end 
of her name, which he cannot, 
could never, pronounce.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image: Skeeze via Pixabay

Indulgence No.3 (Day 231)

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Image of cake & coffee by Michael Stern

Abuelita, June 2017 (Day 179)

We crossed the border in

a rusted Falcon, on a wheel 

that was starting to go flat. 

A fountain of dust spouted 

behind us, tinting the sky  

terra-cotta where the sun shone,

Powdering our car, skin, food 

with an ancient, ubiquitous grit,

metallic on our tongues, like blood.

Whenever we passed another 

car, truck, any sign of civilization, 

she ducked and covered herself. 

Before the stark mountains, a plain, 

monotony interrupted here and there 

by run-down, sun-broken signs. 

We drove through darkness, wide 

open to the desert air, vibrating

under a million spinning galaxies.

(c) 2017, by Hannah Six

Photo: Rennett Stowe