The Drive
By C.M. Mounts
we stopped along the side of
the winding, narrow two-lane road
that curved out of sight behind the next hill
you cut fresh sagebrush off the side of this arid mountain
it filled the car with the scent of wild outdoors
which followed us home, a thousand miles to the city
the road ended atop the pink mountains
these goliath witnesses of eons
watched the land run red with blood
the essence of the violence
that occurred in the valley below
had oozed and seeped into the soil
it radiated through the air and into the people
the place I had hoped would become our home
echoed too hollow and strange and empty
