Poems by Michael Anania & C. Dale Young
"I feel / light, so light. I gladly give up everything."
Postulate
by Michael Anania
consider this: that words
have valences, that they
move freely in the warm
breeze of speech and find
their own companionabilities,
lines like strands of particles,
the poems they propose
waft within the spaces
they measure out between usMy Asceticism
by C. Dale Young
Just after midnight, the desert calls me. It says Come, and I walk out onto the terrace and feel the night heat prickling my skin, the dry air leeching moisture from my lungs. At that hour, the pool is sky blue, lit by a single powerful light in the deep end. The desert says Take off your clothes, and I comply. I strip down and enter the pool. Floating above me, a million stars. For most of my life, I would not have done this much less considered it, but I am, as they say, seasoned now, have learned the benefits of being solo even if my man is just a flight away sleeping on the other side of the country. The water is not shy in touching me, and the desert stirs and makes sure it is always known and appreciated. I swim and float. I almost frolic. And when I climb the steps and rise from the pool, I let the desert air dry me off. I stand there without shame, stand under the night sky as the moisture lifts from my skin. I feel light, so light. I gladly give up everything.
The Good Boy
by C. Dale Young
Why did you come? Why did you leave the comfort of your home? Why do you care? Questions like these arise easily in the desert. Always the why’s. Always the prompting. So I tell you I was depleted. Life had been unkind as life often is, and I was depleted. I needed to think, and I am tempted to quote Descartes, but what point is there in something like that? We all think, and the desert cares very little. It wants you to be wholly in your body. It is in many ways how one survives in the desert. The desert takes so much, desiccates you, robs you of minerals as your muscles must adapt. It demands you submit, and you let it take from you what it will because that is the way of things, the natural order. Who convinced us we are apex predators? The desert knows we are prey, easy prey. So, I submit. I let the desert have its way, give up my long-lived need for dominance. The desert says little. It prickles my skin and irritates my eyes, my nose so dry I worry I will bleed. But I am fine, I am cared for... The desert claimed me. For once, I am cherished.
Michael Anania's recent books include Continuous Showings (2017), Nightsongs and Clamors (2018), and In Time (2024). A collection of essays on his work, From the Word to the Place, edited by Lea Graham was published in 2022. He lives in Austin Texas
