June is an island

On Memoir: The desert turns hope over on her tongue

I wrote this poem last year and then forgot about it. It was inspired by a writing prompt from Trust & Travel. The line was June is an island.

When I think about what June means to me now I think about sun and I think about hope and I think about the first of the fireflies. But that’s not what this poem is about. I wrote it thinking about what June meant to me then. Then being the time I spent in the desert that felt as if it stretched on for centuries. Then being the time when I didn’t know what love meant, when my days were colored with longing, and there was nothing left to say.

When I think about June then and I think about an island, I think about loss and being immovable and how hoping felt harder than giving up. I think about birthday cards from Mom when she was in prison. I think about burying my needs. I think about searching for love in the face of every man including my father.

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Whenever I’m prompted to go somewhere for art I always find myself back in the desert, writing from a place of then. I’m two thousand miles and twenty years away from then and still, here I am.

June Is An Island

What else is there to say
except that growing up meant 
not caring when you didn’t say
I love you back.
 
We drove off Route 66,
down the dirt roads to the lower washes,
and into the darkest spot in the Mojave—
under the night sky of June, 
where we could read Rilke 
with nothing but the stars.

The words left my mouth, 
and never returned.
I can still feel the dryness in my throat,
the bitter lingering of longing.

What else is there to say 
except that I thought love meant 
burying my needs in the parched earth 
where the creosote bush crackles 
and the heat never sleeps.

I emptied myself 
so when the desert winds 
swept through the canyon
and sent the brush fires to frenzy
I’d be easier to carry, 
easier to love. 

But it only made me 
easier to forget.

What else is there to say 
except that strength meant 
not crying when you drove away 
on the first of June, 
four days before my birthday, 
and left me standing on the cracked 
and sun-bleached driveway 
with my arms full of grief.

The night had shined with
the promise of everything 
but it brought me nothing 
but the broken moon.

What else is there to say 
except that June is an island 
where the desert turns hope 
over on her tongue,
and all I want is to be swallowed 
like a pill on the morning after.

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When you think about art and you think about what stirs you, what comes up for you? Where do you go? Are you writing from a then place or a now place?