“What I Mean When I Say Las Vegas”

after Jeffrey Davis

Finalist, “Road Not Taken” Contest

We had no dark leaves of longing,
instead we held the Mojave, its sand

singing through our fingers. Memories close enough
to the sweet sage and mesquite, road runners

lightning after a desert rain. I’m back among sand dunes back
inside that small space spent searching for talismans, fall a shrug

away. And the sun at the window, scrying.
Each bright sky of memory silvers, like pieces

of a broken mirror, immediate again. Encircled by amethyst
mountains, remembered for their refusal to fall. If only I could settle

on the patio of hope and understanding,
near our swimming pool lonely for children and heat,

just before the electric flash of summer
thunderstorms. We have our places

for solitude — that shawled want of the body.
My mother stands at the ironing board, her heart
	
no longer moving. And my father
sits at the TV, watching men fall

and continents collide in neon light —
He hates growing old.

I want to gather the devotion of the past,
to crawl deep into my becoming. I see

the girl now, lifting her head in the half-light.
I see who she is becoming.

Terresa Wellborn is a librarian and writer who dwells in possibility. Twitter/X @Bricoleur_CCW

(Photo by Matteo Di Iorio on Unsplash)

“How Do You Say Thank You?” by Cynthia W. Connell

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