Bales crouch in a line

                        a lazy curve

            caliche palmed into a patch.

The wall does not want to be straight.

 
            Straw

                        flies across the desert.

                        II. 

We have come to the high desert to heal. 

                        Ice lines our basket of straw

            sits at the road’s curve.

We set things straight

            but it’s only a patch.

                         III.

 I pick at the patch

            of crusty skin on my ear.

                        The desert sun is a killer.          

Straight from New England

                        no longer willing to live life

            inside the lines

my path curved

            to this land of straw.
 

                        IV.

Blanca, the straw-colored lab

                        sprawls on a patch of buffalo grass

            the curve of a blade

                        between her webbed toes

stuffed with desert sand.

            Three more dogs wait for a biscuit

                        sit in a line

they’re a pack now

            hard to keep them straight.

                        V.

I always wanted to go straight

                        to have a family

            but now I remember that

straw houses blow down. 

I was seduced by your line

                        or was it the patch of color

            tattooed on your forearm?

I followed you to the desert

            ignoring the deadliness of that curve.

                        VI.

One thousand feet below

                        the Rio Grande curves

            the straight mud road the only way in or out. 

The desert protects us from intruders. 

We draw straws to see

                        who will get to go in to town

            to patch the leaky tire

following along the quarter-section line.

                        VII.

At last, we have forgotten our lines. 

                        We will hide in the wall’s curve

            huddling together in a patch of sun. 

We will go straight to hell

                        in this straw marriage

            baking in the desert.

Charlie Kalogeros-Chattan