ISSUE THREE: December, 2019

LIGHTS IN THE DESERT

by E.H. LUPTON

There were things I liked, living in the scrubland between the sandwaste and the ocean on a slender strip of green. There were no mosquitos. The air shimmered in the daytime, then cooled at night, and occasionally I heard the sharp tattoo of rain on the corrugated metal of my bungalow. I’d shaved my head in penance, and I could smell aniseed on the breeze that swirled around my scalp. Time dried up and blew away. I knew there were dangers, knew some canyons were scarred with radiation, but I had no way of knowing where they were, and as the time between one moment and another grew lax, the idea that there could be an end was no longer conceivable. There were snakes and scorpions, centipedes, cactus and thorny tumble weed, the ever-present threat of blowing sand and sunburn, heatstroke and dehydration. In the morning I went to the creek for water, scrutinizing birds circling in the still air. In the evening, as the fire wearied, I blinked the smoke from my eyes and watched the colored lights dancing out beyond the dunes, low in the air, speeding away from us like comets.

E.H. LUPTON lives in Madison, WI. Her poems will appear/have recently appeared in Ink and Nebula, Poet Lore, Not One of Us, and House of Zolo. She is also the author of a novella, The Joy of Fishes (Vagabondage Press, 2013), and a long-running journal comic, Em oi! When not writing, she can be found running long distances and drinking too much coffee. Find her on the web at ehlupton.com.