Transformation
I have known the unspeakable joy of the hot, blue sky
Domed over parched and golden miles of highway and space.
Clouds leaping from wisps into vast terrifying mass,
Black on their flat bottoms, deep, complicated, chaotic crosswinds,
Eager to split the sky with lightning, to drown the dry,
quiet emptiness with torrents, flashes, and rolling waves of thunder.
While their tops are whipped cream mounds lit by western sun
Blushing and innocent of the violence below.
Their two sacred southwestern majesties, Sun
and Rain battling in the wide, gilded desert afternoon.
And I have known the storm and the disappearance of storm,
As if thunderclouds never existed,
never threatened an end-of-the-world deluge.
Trickster Literary Journal Spring 2026
