Southern Legitimacy Statement: Mike Horan was raised in the South but now makes his home in the desert outside Palm Springs, California.
Landscape
I get up while it’s still dark
Have to
Over 100 before eight a.m.
The summer usual
But I need to get outside and
move around the neighborhood
my space before
locking myself in the cool cave of home
until evening
and all us nocturnes can venture out again.
Dress: shorts, t-shirt, sneakers.
Bathroom: piss, brush teeth, splash water on face.
Out the door, water in hand.
Racing up the street
Straight at the mountains
as if I am Ali Baba
going to my treasure cave.
My treasure is more mundane.
I want my back to the mountain
when the sun comes upand whips night away
like a magician revealing a trick
and the world that is my valley revealed.
I bow and head home
back to the shadows.
