Finding the blue tail lizard, blackened by the sun and impaled on the barbed wire, we take it tenderly into our mouths. We roll the dried salt flesh on our tongues. Our white teeth crunch the tiny bones. Some shrike has left this for us. His strident call echoes in our ears. The tiny skull catches in our teeth. Our throats open for the wail. We wail for the blue water falling on our faces. The scenery blows away like reptilian skin. Another summer sheds. It's the ochre sky we watch for. The khaki wheat beneath our feet.
Slicing open the chrysalis we find the tiny ruby. Speel-yi has left this for us. This drop of blood in the sun crackling heat. You have opened the skin of my breast with your long knife. Into my pulsing heart you place this fire. Through the winter this larvae grows and keeps us warm.
I see you through the eyes of coyote, which he has so carelessly thrown in a hand game boast. Now that we move so closely, my only thought is to put the red road between us. This was never meant to be. This private desert that renews its skin every month. The letters drift like dunes, the rattlesnake that laughs is the same that bites.
There is a black crow flying along the red road, crying to us. The dust rises with our steps, the blue tail of the lizard is in your hand.
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