A dry blue nowhere

In The Middle Of The Dry Blue Nowhere

I live in a small town. It does not yet live in me.
That may change if winter has its way. It will be
my second since leaving the Wet Blue Somewhere.

In a small town, small things make big splashes.
One can run one’s finger along the hem of the sky
and the weather will change. But no one looks up.

Every sound carries all the way to the corner, to
the pleated dresses of the small brown mesas that
overlook the river from their wither-cherried heights.

It is the same river that Lewis and Clark followed
on their way West and followed the same again East,
until it was legend long after it was memory.

In time, I will follow this same river West and keep
going. Small towns remember for a long time. It is
their nature to do so. But this town will forget me.

It will forget that I sat with the stars at the sill,
that the moon and I barely spoke at all, that I
made a new friend in the unrelenting wind.

I live in the middle of a dry blue nowhere, but it does not
yet live in me. If it ever does, I suspect it will nudge the
front door open a little, or sway a curtain to tell me it’s home.

Joseph Gallo
August 22, 2005