The Color of My Uncle’s Car
by Sarah Stockton
reflected the blue wash above Arizona, as we snaked up the sides
of Thumb’s Butte, halfway between pine hills and the sagebrush floor
me squashed in the back seat between my favorite cousin and a toppling
pile of old books. A rock hunter, my uncle was a punning, praying mantis
of a man, lungs ruined in the nuclear destruction of the Utah desert
test sites where other, lesser men experimented with death, disrupted
patterns of bird migrations and broke the sacred. The man I loved breathed
cactus and named the stones, carrying everything he loved in a sky-clad car.
SARAH STOCKTON, MA, is a poet, spiritual director, and the editor of River Mouth Review. She lives by the Salish Sea in Northwest Washington. Some of her poems have appeared in: Glass Poetry, The Shallow Ends, Luna Luna Magazine, Rise Up Review, Empty Mirror, and Crab Creek Review, among others.
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