Ice Skating on Lake Estancia

It used to be so simple: red dye made you 

hyper. Now the whole tree vibrates 

hummingbird the whole year, turns 

the dogs mean. What naiad for a spring 

that never comes? How to enchant 

a disinterested land? The seasons never

cared less for us, and it was always not

at all. The impressionists needed Krakatoa. 

Anak tantrums impotent today. We're too 

busy with the news telling us to build our 

houses far enough away that they don't burn

each other. Have you seen such a sunset? 

And who's ever heard of Indonesia? It's

island for about to go under. So you go 

to the desert and all around the desert 

burns, alpine to red dust. Treeline to base 

rock. New York commissions an obelisk

of syringes full of red roses. The Times 

deems it tacky. This place was a paradise

an ice age ago.

Sara Fitzpatrick works in animal welfare in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her poetry and fiction have been published in places like The Shore, Feral Poetry, Tampa Review, and X-R-A-Y. A collection, Bury me in the Sky, was published in 2020 by Nixes Mate Books.