California lies lifeless and naked, shivering in heat. No rain has fallen in years. News crews grill elders who can't think of such thirst, when fields and hills stripped to the buff, and bared it all, bad in heat. Live oaks shrink, shrivel, and stone to save sap, holding onto the ghost of ooze for dear life. Wild oats dry into nuggets, their false gold shimmying, and shrubs fling forth their fangs, having lost their leaves to the heat.
.
.
.
windswept slopes
creak of dead wood
creak of dead wood
live oak
.
by Tad Wojnicki
Hsinchu, Taiwan
first published in Poetry Midwest 9, Winter 2004
first published in Poetry Midwest 9, Winter 2004
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