Voicemail Poems

He gave up looking for a town, gas station, or house off a road or driveway The desert unfolded further than his eyes could see. In the stillness, the ground spread in glare, broken only by shrubs now and then. A swell of dunes lay below a jut of mountain range bulking up from beneath the surface. They were told it could take hours to traverse this section. That they should have a full tank, a functioning radiator, and plenty of liquids. No warning was offered about the middle hours of the day. Notions of night, coolness, and breeze were charred in the afternoon glare. They were not told their mouths would stop moving, their minds would stop seeking the right words, that their hearts would contract, twist, and burrow away from the blistering air, the closeness of the car, of each other. The road snaked a path past shoulders of rock. A ground squirrel foraged, darted between weeds and creosote bushes. He kept his hands on the wheel, his eyes on the cut of the road. Driving on even though he could s