Desert Surprise: Abandoned Hide-a-Bed

On a spring morning in 2015, I stepped between the strands of a fence along Albuquerque’s West Mesa and descended a curving, rubbled path available only to trail bikes and pedestrians. Though ranching vehicles of some kind had clearly worn the double tread where I walked, the wild was reclaiming this part of the desert. But then something neither flora nor fauna flagged my peripheral vision. I stepped around brittle scrub blocking my view and gaped at the apparition of a weather-worn, rusted-out hide-a-bed splayed open in the sand.

This part of the mesa along the city’s western edge bears many such dispiriting discards—mattresses, washing machines, ancient television sets. But the derelict sofa had been there so long it looked almost at home among the chamisa. I took photographs. I mused over how the sofa got there, how long it had been moldering. One day it was gone—extracted, I assume, by a four-wheeler crew from the city department that maintains our open spaces.

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As a writer, I’ve spent much of the past quarter-century musing over the notion of surprise. I’m a born story-teller; narrative is my default mode. But stories need surprise to jolt them out of whatever narrative rut we writers are apt to follow.

As I was working on poems for my first poetry collection, my desk succumbed to clutter. And clutter can have its uses, as I discovered one afternoon when the official report from a high-contrast heart scan surfaced. Thanks to the poet Kevin Prufer’s achievements in “braided narrative,” my brain juxtaposed two images—ragged arteries, ragged sofa. And I was off. Here are the opening lines of “Tomography, with Quantitative Evaluation of Coronary Calcium” (yes, I stole the title—from my heart scan report):

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I pause beside a sofa bed splayed

over rock-strewn sand along the mesa trail.

   A coyote trots through the brush beyond, heedless of me,

     my distractions, my specialist’s report.

   Calcified plaque (large) noted in the proximal portion of the vessel

                      resulting in mild stenosis.

The fabric is in tatters, foam dingy with rainfall and sun,

batting still fluffy along the edges

               like a lamb ripped open

               on a summer morning years ago.

           Predator shall lie down with prey—

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So: the narrative moves from sofa bed to coyote to heart scan, then back to the sofa bed, then flashes to a quick memory of farm life, followed by a biblical reference. To the extent this poem succeeds, I credit surprise.

These are my opening thoughts for Narrative Surprise, a blog that will focus on poetry, fiction, and memoir. How do writers employ narrative to lure us in? How do they unsettle narrative so as to show us something fresh, unusual, surprising?

Notes:

·         I discovered Kevin Prufer’s approach in “Braided Narrative,” his contribution to Wingbeats II: Exercises and Practice in Poetry. I had the honor of serving as co-editor.

·         Highly recommended: Kevin Prufer’s The Fears (Copper Canyon, 2023). The braiding on display in these poems is masterful.

·         My poem with sofa bed appears in full in Anyone’s Son, from 3:A Taos Press. I highly recommend browsing there.

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