take the left turn right

“I shoulda taken the left turn at Albuquerque.”
B. Bunny

Hasty unfortunate Albuquerque
electrocutes the trees against
the green-black twilight of a
summer sky. Let’s play the vielle,
the viola, the violetta. Let’s dance
the rumba, the rota, the rococo into night.
Each leaf’s outlined in fire. Other cities
turn a shoulder, orange in their jealousy,
their jalousie windows shuttered
in disdain. Let them sneer. Here
the hot line of mountain rears up
like a fortress against them,
the desert lays rough carpet
of sage and scrub all the way
to the banks of the river,
our own old serpent of tongues.
The sun beats us like its bronze
bright gong, tells us sing,
tells us shout, tells us joy.

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Jane Wiseman is a poet who splits her time between urban Minneapolis and the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico. Her most recent publication was in The Westchester Review.