Simone Muench

i.
your touch was a tomahawk in an otherwise unmarred knee:
a peach tree borer funneling its way through bark:  bone—
you shipwrecked us in a xeric area of arroyos
where desert javelinas forage through
moonseed    tumbleweed    beneath
a black widow moon

ii.
a waxwing landed on ocotillo’s flame
flower while cigar smoke wrapped
itself like gauze around
your geometric
silhouette

iii.
blood:  brood:  sinew:  rictus                   muscles move
beneath skin like rattlesnakes scouring
your body for birds: beak
breakage

iv.
screech owl knows better than I—pleasure of loud
noise in a desert void: your voice hibiscus
pretty & just as empty