Off-roading

Michal ‘MJ’ Jones

    We gather in the desert

    my head spins its way past stars

    Cozy, I could watch this same twilight

    clustered sunset for a millennium

    But you aren’t so current as much

    as river rushing –

    you’ve got gumption to pack 

    as many supernovas into this thin life

    & so I have my becoming unpackaged   

    tossed & crumbled behind some reddish country road

    I barrel down

    a path until there is none

    for each tiptoe on the petal 

    a bloom & sputter in my heart

    as the Jeep jostles / throttles &

    bangs up a cloud staircase into soft ether

    Offroads erode my stepping stones, my kite rings –

    we’re just wild saguaro & ocotillo overgrowth

    I drive along our living laughter 

    ready to upchuck my gravitas

    your palm on my neck, your love

    a root that settles my stomach

    At the end of this desert road – or maybe

    in the expanse of its middle

    I will stand, shoulders sure & tucked

    with outstretched hands

    Walk to me & pull us

    into that blue abandon sweeping the sky.

    Michal ‘MJ’ Jones is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet & parent in Oakland, CA. Their poems have appeared in Anomaly, Borderlands Texas Poetry Review, & TriQuarterly Review. Their debut poetry collection HOOD VACATIONS is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in 2023. Twitter: @JustSayMJ

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