You with your

piñon dry air,

brittle brushes of sage,

unfiltered sun glaring

against a painted

blue sky. Your harsh light

fed me, incubated my frail frame.

I thought—

when I came to you,

a ghost husk of a self

with turquoise soul unmounted,

hanging from ribs,

I thought—

when I bowed before your cross

of martyrs at sunset,

when I fell at the alter

of your clear stars—

I thought you could kill me.

Dehydrate my heart,

shuffle it under

your shifting sands, cover my name

in forest fire ash.

Instead, you let me drink

from speckled watermelon

breasts, infused me with blood

of Christ-the-Mountain-Man.

You rested a yellow

cactus flower

beside my bleached

white skull

and called it art.

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ALIYAH WARWICK is a student in Maharishi International University’s MFA in Creative Writing program. She enjoys dabbling in dance, puppetry, Dungeons & Dragons, and languages like Italian and Swedish. You can find an essay she wrote about her experience learning Italian in Zenith Literary Magazine. Her poetry was published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal and will be featured in the forthcoming anthology, Conestoga Zen, Issue 2.