Late Summer

Augusts are cruelest

in the desert where swelter

meets survival, raw

and fervent and

persistent, indomitable

against cracked mud

and stacked odds. Dark

storm's hem descends

and with it, suffocating

humidity, the dampness

the land soaks greedily

to fill its long-left need;

the dampness that, left

too long, rots

us from the inside

out.