Landscape so empty
vast fences corral
only clouds.

The penstemon must love
the hummingbird, its blossoms
perfectly shaped,
and positioned,
for the hummingbird’s sip.

Here a penstemon
droops across the branch
of cat’s claw acacia:
lovers in each other’s arms.

Eye-level to me
the penstemon’s red
grazes my shoulder.
I turn my gaze
to view

red lips.

The flowers after the rain
are disheveled
and unbuttoned
like lace garments
drying in the grass.

Words dovetail
like bark
on a ponderosa.
Still the insect
bores through.

It rains, and even the weeds
leave tracks.

After the rainstorm,
grasses lie
horizontal to the earth.

With a few hours’ sun,
grasses raise their stems
ever so slightly
heavenward.

Poems
are
merely
captions.

The arc of the goldfinch
as it flies to shadowed branch,
fleeting as my thoughts.