Arizona's Monsoon

[imitation of Davis McCombs's poetry]

He was looking for a new experience, something
that could develop and be held
up to the light of his memory;
pieces of Coconino County to be remembered alongside
the familiar flora and fauna of Bluefield and Greenbrier.
The summer was shifting, and the sky had suddenly grown
thick with clouds that hugged the vast horizon,
their color reminiscent of the contusion that had formed
on his daughter’s pale forehead the day before.
He quickened his pace towards Antelope Canyon,
the deep, underground chasm beckoning;
dust-devils beginning to form around the tourist
attraction’s entry. He stopped
to look at the darkening empyrean again, and descended
into the sandstone’s curves; the narrow, twisting
hallways were now empty except for the brilliant bursts
of lightning that skimmed the surface of the walls,
exposing the canyon to a much brighter degree
than his camera’s flash could hope to achieve.
The desert stood silent for twenty seconds;
he began to count each moment in a whisper, feeling
very alone, before the clouds’ underbellies were unchained
and every grain of sand was rearranged,
each seed of the pinyon was washed away.