Sundowner Wind

By Laure-Anne Bosselaar

Three days now & the sundowner stubborn: a hot hiss
in the jacaranda. It’s in bloom. There is no blue
                    like this one, dusted by drought & dusk
                                              but flowering all it can—

raising its fists to the other blue—up there—sun-fraught,
            contrailed, hazed & exhausted with light,
                                   but there, unfailingly there.

    The streets are empty, but for a mockingbird on a roof, he too
                    doing all he can, singing to the scorched mountains
pockmarked by the Tea Fire.

The sundowner danced
                    with that fire for days,
            its flames still a rage in my old friend’s eyes:
                    she lost all she had to it.

I think of her often, bent over, sifting
            pottery shards from her house’s ashes & finding
                    solace there. My god: solace—in so little.

The sun’s down. The wind dies in the tree.
            I thumb the two wedding bands on my finger, have them
                    do their little dance together: tiny rings
in a stillness that can’t silence everything.

Laure-Anne Bosselaar is the author of four poetry books, the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and edited five anthologies. She won the James Dickey Prize for Poetry in 2020. Her new book, These Many Rooms, came out from Four Way Books. She teaches at the Solstice Low Residency MFA Program and served as Santa Barbara’s Poet Laureate (2019-2021). Also by this poet: "Robert's Keys" and "Ocean Rooms"