Poems for Infidels

My Childhood, if it had Taken Place in an Actual Desert

42 My Childhood, if it had Taken Place in an Actual Desert We used to think that giants lived in the rock wells next to Ocotillo. We used to say that red-tailed hawks turned into creosote bushes when they died, the way the Cloud People of Los Coyotes Indian Reservation became mariposa lilies. We thought that chuparosa scraped its bony fingers across the dry white desert sky just to make children unhappy. We said, “What is imperfect is best,” and believed it, just as we believed that the rattle of boulders repeated the oozing of wet clay but in a different dialect. At the creekbed, where poisonous mushrooms grew, we sang only the truest poems— Lizard-tongue, lizard-tongue: Spit us some rain. Our parents have married; Life is insane. ...