It was fall when I showed you the desert. The imported
maples on campus beginning to turn while unseen coyotes
sang in mourning. The San Gabriels ran to our left
looming and starless. After Pulse an alarm blared inside me
and I couldn’t be touched while Build the Wall
bricked in your head. Regardless, we went past the lights,
past strip mall neon, the original In-N-Out, until the freeway
became a still lake bottom. We cracked awful jokes, grinned
with the knowing that somebody wanted us laughing, alive.
We pulled off in the scrub with no clue where we were.
Your arm found my waist as we looked out through
night. Let us go back there, to that unknown lost place.