Evaporation: the conversion of a liquid or solid into a gas.Â
Under certain conditions, solids change directly into vapor,
that is, into a gaseous form.
This process is called sublimation.
The taxi driver said the increased humidity came from
30,000 swimming pools, watered lawns, and golf courses
few of them here when you grew up
Returning to your parent’s houseÂ
now empty
familiar smells remain
old, close, and dusty
we change the sheets on your father’s bed and make love
We discard
categorize
clean
toss out your mother’s shopping lists that go back years
on all of them she had written, “Buy Socks!�
bank statements as old as the expired medicines in the bathroom cabinet
in the desk drawer, newspaper clippings of your father’s career
Dressed in moonlight, the nest of the desert wren holds nothing extraneous and fits cleanly, precisely into the arms of the deer horn cholla
In the cool mornings we walk early
still shadowless
you point out blue gray smoke trees, occitilla, and palo verde
mountains sharp and rocky surround us
And as the sun climbs up over the walls of this valley countless drops of water are heated to evaporation
and rise from the unnaturally green desert floor
as a mist above the mountains
to come back and begin anew
Â
Susan Keller
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