Vermilion Cliffs

Colors baked into a layer cake of rock. A hot and dry May in Arizona. We cannot drink enough water. Whiskey at night: our mouths like tiny deserts in the morning. Relentless sun on dirt, on sand, on what’s left of a river. We haven’t talked about it. The other woman you’re seeing. Young and brunette. A woman who hasn’t seen the contours of these cliffs, who hasn’t stuck her body in the body of a bottle. A small useless thing trapped by glass, trapped by the booze that soothes me. I don’t know how to tell you I’m finished. I run my hand over a sharp, hot rock. These cliffs make me think of the Dead Sea: the mud in stripes of minerals. You’ve never been to the Middle East. There are some things I don’t expect you to understand. The way I remember the salt-strewn shore. Walking out into the gray water. Sky gray, water gray. Skin coated in gray mud. Something about the desert that throws everything raw and clear. A long, stark horizon. The question of survival on the tip of the tongue. Sand grit between the teeth. No place to hide or piss. This is a sanctuary. But then there’s you trudging ahead of me: slender waist, well-built back, baseball cap forward and for the sun. I don’t want to follow you anymore.