for friends

Two recent poems written for two very different friends – an old desert poet I know online and whose work I love, and the girl who sat next to me in seventh grade homeroom who has grown up into a strong and very interesting woman.

for Steppe

The beauty of
a desert ridge

is in its own lines –
there is no ornamentation.

The right poem shows us
not only the ridge –

but what happens
when sunrise hits it
at an angle
that brings its splines alive

or how it ghosts
in moonlight.

for Deb

Breasts carved away
to save the rest of her,

she has been honed to essentials.

The scalpel that removed
malignant nodes

also released
a well of strength –

a gusher.