right hand pointing

Phantoms

It is mid-July, three

o’clock in the afternoon.

In the hot shade

of her adobe porch,

Violet is gazing

 

out over the desert.

The heat waves shimmer

from the desert floor

like phantom serpents,

blurring the edges

 

of creosote, ocotillo,

prickly pear and mesquite.

Even her breathing

is labored as she languishes,

baking like a biscuit

 

in a low-heat oven.

She reminisces the time

she met Jake in his Del Rio

hospital room.

Heavily medicated,

 

he hardly noticed her

moving about the room

like a phantom,

blurring the tenuous

borders between them.