Sand Dunes, Northern Nevada by Nathan Slinker Washing before work, I digress into cracked porcelain, begin to drain… then turn around, once, twice: see myself serving vodka and water to the only woman at the Sundown Bar. She’s riding frantic bones, hard drink a mere distraction. Half the bar’s cleaning supplies in this week’s high, a solution. We go in the back room. Unbranded animals wander off, them who brew and tweak limp out the broken tavern door. Her lips: bruised glass. I steal twenty dollars on her breath and a bottle for later. Seven major dunes surround our shivering—aberrations on a dull pane of dirt. They are remnants of water fable, left to dry and crystallize, a subsistence since replaced. Emptiness of sagebrush, miles tripping over themselves— the desert is easy to traverse when the drug is right. A dumb glow below eastern hills and one hawk, hunting. Her name is grey, almost real. We hike the beige lumps sinking with each step, as if into old skin. I am doll with shaking body. She is blown to shadow by sun. Wild horse gallops violet, an oppression of hoof and mane violent against dawn. And something in the air around it, a rider of sorts, dwarfed by numb, too distant to see. theMeadow 7
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