Issue 07: Addiction

We swear they stand no chance facing this wind.
Who prospers here when heat conspires with stone
to gall votive candles down to slivers?
If Santa Barbara’s a saint defrocked
there’s patrons enough for any lost cause––
maybe St. Jude will untangle roads north.
A new saint’s image, pinned to granite, flies
above a young girl’s photo. Loosed by wind,
she loats in the rain, the prowling future.
          Arivaca, Arizona