by Laura Last

My son flew out west yesterday,
into sunset’s bloodshot eye, back
to the desert where dust hides

its venoms and salves. Life holds itself
in dry stumps, and at night: that bowl of sky,
punctured by stars. He loves

the creosote smell after rain, the saguaro
that blooms after dark. Scorpion
shoe, hidden wound—he is half javelina,

a tough-hided creature patrolling
the canyon with his wide-shouldered
squadron, hiding the most tender

parts of himself: just what we meant
not to teach him. Here in his boyhood
home, rain smears the skylight, too warm

to freeze. Attic dripping with absence,
a room thick with loss and relief.
We sent him away to keep him alive

and so far, it has. Face-down in his pillow,
I pretend to breathe in his mountains, his sky,
the smell of wet dog in his bed. We know

we walk backwards by water, blind-
folded, unclenching, unpeeling ourselves
off of him: only child, phantom limb.

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Laura Last is a writer and musician living in the Hudson River Valley. In 2024, her poem, “Apology,” was published in Fantastic Imaginary Creatures: An Anthology of Contemporary Prose Poems and was nominated for a 2025 Pushcart Prize. She received her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars.