I was leaving California
\nso we went out to the desert in M\u2019s truck
\non the 60, then the 10, traffic, sunset,
\nthe moon rising fat in the sky
\ngold then white \u2013
\nso at first everything looked beautiful
\nand then it looked dead.<\/p>\n
At camp M remembered a story,
\na couple inside their campers\u2019 tent,
\na ghost got inside, and the usual,
\nonly one made it out.
\nTo get the fire lit M doused all of it \u2013
\nthe store firewood,
\nthe sage in arm\u2019s reach,
\nthe cardboard in the back of the truck \u2013
\nin WD40, and I walked off
\nand listened to its hiss.
\nThe rotten smell of sage mixed with oil
\nand dust, so we choked our beer down
\nin the space the rocks had left empty
\non the desert floor.<\/p>\n
What makes a place haunted?
\nMore than the ghost clouds
\nwhen I wanted stars,
\nthe boulder-shadows crouched
\nat the edge of the fire.
\nThat night, I heard rain, hands
\nbeating for hours on the tent, fingering
\nthe cold through the staked corners.
\nBy 6am it was a thing around our ankles.
\nIt gripped the pillows, slid under our clothes
\nwhere we used to hold each other. <\/p>\n
Breaking down camp the damp, thick air
\nwas watchful, and the Joshua trees
\nheld their green and were silent.
\nWhen we retraced the roads
\nthe clouds let in a watery light,
\nwavered over the soaked stones
\nand desert grit. On our way out
\nI bought a t-shirt at the park gift shop.
\nThe cashier told us it hadn\u2019t rained
\nin six months. I don\u2019t remember
\nif I believed her. I was leaving.<\/p>\n
I was leaving California so we went out to the desert in M\u2019s truck on the 60, then the 10, traffic, sunset, the moon rising fat in the sky gold then white \u2013 so at first everything looked beautiful and then it looked dead. At camp M remembered a story, a couple inside their campers\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-2cA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8468"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10173,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8468\/revisions\/10173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}