girls swimming in the desert sun walking

      Breakdown                                                                                   


 Asphalt stretches for miles ahead of us
 summer vapor rising in a desert 
dream of water. My mother undresses 

my sister and dry wind rustles her hair. 
We leave a small shirt stretched across
 the asphalt. Miles ahead of in humid air, 

stack of slender cumulus 
wait like women in a seagirt dream,
 sisters of water, their sundresses 

in threads of thin floccus. 
We walk near cholla

 with razor throats asphalt miles ahead 
stretching us to indefinite shadows, borderless
as horizons in the blanched desert, waterless 

mother. Dreary under dresses 
fabric brittle as sand, we sweat grace to a grizzle in the heat, 
like salty dirt in asphalt stretching for miles ahead of us.
 Dreaming of water, my mother undresses.

                                         Janet Zupan










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