to rule the desert

by Monica Robinson

Overhead, a pale moon rises and an unfamiliar set of constellations poke through the fabric of the sky. The night is still, vicious, and wild, all at once. These are simply stories that have been written down elsewhere. But they are all of them, in the end, a part of the desert.

The desert is a patient abductor, content to siphon an essence away gradually until there is nothing left but grit and an unwilling pact once made, now forgotten, drawn-up so often in ink-thick blood and gasoline pilfered from those abandoned shells of cars on the roadsides; from their skeletons rotting in the canyons.