Sky Country

Prickly pear.

Shanty towns,

oil fields, rattling

in the distance.

It's sky country

out here.

Watercolor palettes

were born

in this place.

Every painting feels like

plagiarism.

God's work,

flattened into

pale reproductions.

By the time

the brush hits the page

the colors

have shifted.

Nothing

keeps still.

Clouds

race wild horses.

No referee

needed.

They do it

for fun.

Mushroom hills,

like ice cream cones

melting

as the wind licks

around, tasting

their sweet, slow

time.

Wearing them down.

Ghosts dance

across the dry

land.

They are home here,

with the snakes.

The sky sits atop

the land.

Low ceiling clearance.

You have to duck,

or your head

might break through

and end up

among the stars.

We are just here

for the black blood.

We like

to bathe in it

and leave it on

as armor.

Can't see

the dark

without it.

The night

is a scary place

for a soft, slow

creature.

Mad with power.

Heroes.

Monsters.

The answer

doesn't matter.

We struck

the wish well

beneath the earth.

Now the sun

never sets.

The night

never comes.

We race clouds

across the sky

and win.