First Time in Tucson: I. Dust

. . . Dust coats everything the hue of skin and dried peach pits,

tints of toes, tongues, magic stones, the underbellies

of extinct animals, iguanas on a sandstone wall.

Dust promises the moon rising on the desert:

“I will paint you a shade of pink so pale

you will not know yourself, and when

you least expect it.”

–Excerpt from “First Time in Tucson: I. Dust” in Jumping Off the Train by Donna Pucciani (Blue Forge Press, Washington 2007). First published in Roanoke Review and West Wind.