Valley Blood by Court Castaños

Pumpkin Dip by Brandon L. Thompson

There is still a scrap of summer

air caught, a swirling smoke in my belly

and I wish I could magic

drape my fingers in dance like water leaping,

coax out the young miner’s lettuce to unfold

from red and gray soft clay earth.

I want those plump leaves,

look like big hearts doused

in rain water shining,

like they’ve risen from the bosom

of Moore Creek. They have. I

want to fill my cheeks to flood,

soothe this burnt tongue, all

loose chap and still smoldering after

the lightning storm drove up

from the south. A burden

let loose under that painting of

a voracious black hole, swollen bright

colors of ache: red, blue, greys.

Greys not grays. Grays you can

fold and keep, nuzzle like fur;

greys bite and snarl and pus,

pus sprayed everywhere

like a candle grabbed and shook

from its perch, burning.

A child of the valley so far from my river,

San Joaquin, where the browns and rainbows grow

from minnows into myths

fat with life and the fig orchards

full of skeleton trees frozen in dance

call the rain back to their

withered tongues. Silvered with char

they still collect the water in

their blackened annual rings, hum and

sweeten the air with valley blood,

long awaited petrichor.

Court Castaños grew up adventuring along the Kings River in the San Joaquin Valley. After moving to Santa Cruz to study art Castaños now spends time writing poetry and exploring the redwoods. Previous work published in The Nasiona and new poems forthcoming in Boudin, of The McNeese Review.