Postcard
Monique Sanchez
It’s too hot for May.
Or maybe I forgot
what it was like
to stand here.
Instead I erased from memory
the heat, the flies,
the ghosts,
and decay.
Instead
I only remember the blue
and the mountains
papering the horizon.
Per Annum
Monique Sanchez
The aridness, comforting
blankets me
My hands shield my eyes
from sunlight made
more punishing by absence
Everything is dead
​
Our small square of grass
rattles in its dryness
The aster, aborted
a mercy granted by God
powders under my heel
The egg in the coop is empty
but for a scarlet film
I walk inside the riverbed
my steps throwing glittering sand
Taproots brush my ankles,
their brown limbs reaching out
as if asking for a gift
Here I am again
wanting
Pastoral, Muted
Monique Sanchez
Everything ice
Everything ethereal
Everything oil
slick black & bleeding
out from glacier
​
A hi|s|tory
written in the waterline
Tell me—
What burns in the boreal?