To watch the cactus bloom

From the dusty mesa, her looming shadow grows

Hidden in the branches of the poison creosote.

She twines her spines up slowly towards the boiling sun,

And when I touched her skin, my fingers ran with blood.

In the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon,

I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom.

A strange hunger haunted me; the looming shadows danced.

I fell down to the thorny brush and felt a trembling hand.

When the last light warms the rocks and the rattlesnakes unfold,

Mountain cats will come to drag away your bones.

And rise with me forever across the silent sand,

And the stars will be your eyes and the wind will be my hands.

The Handsome Family, Far from any road.