Take Adams, it’s nicer
Julio tells us, driving us from the airport.
They’re supposed to finish all this before the Super Bowl.
He shakes his head.
The traffic cones wink jauntily.
Holes gape in the pavement,
city’s veins exposed to air.
At least the buildings cast shadow.
Palo verdes line the street,
green branches scarred and smooth.
Tiny thorns hide in the feathery leaves.
Those thorns bite, we learn
in the dry arroyos of the Phoenix Mountain Preserve.
Stucco walls and wrought iron fencing
block our way to the street.
A man is cleaning the pool.
He doesn’t see me, waving.
Later I see him drive away in his pickup,
the handle of the pool strainer sticking out the back.
Every year tourists die hiking Camelback,
Abbie warns me.
What time are you hiking?
Bring a lot of water.
Salted peanuts.
It’s snake season.
Watch your feet.
Don’t step on a cactus.
The teddy bear chollas shed pieces of themselves,
scattered along the path.
My coworkers imagine them,
pew pew, shooting out their barbs
like it’s a video game.
A German family was hiking,
another Uber driver tells us.
Did they all die? Tina asks.
No, just the mom. They were all disoriented.
The husband and son left her to get help.
She wandered off, looking for shade.
It was a while before they found her.
She was dead when they did.
Who leaves their wife behind?
Their mom? he asks.
We don’t answer.
Rosalie Hendon is an environmental planner living in Columbus, Ohio. She started a virtual poetry group in 2020 during quarantine that has collectively written over 200 poems. Her work is published in Change Seven, Planisphere Q, Call Me [Brackets], Entropy, Pollux, Superpresent, Cactifur, and Fleas on the Dog.
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