when they ask you to name the muse

she is a highway stretched across desert night, sleep curving 
herself around red rock & a single airstream trailer that reflects 
three-quarter moonlight like a spaceship. she is a song, the way 
a voice hits microphone in a room alone after midnight, full of 
a storied truth & beauty no other ear will ever hear. she is 
the sudden rush of creekwater barreling down mountain after 
a season without touch, the greening bud on the locust we thought 
wouldn’t last another year. the plum blossom with her bittersweet 
promise of palm-sized fruit you will not be here to collect. the plush 
front seat of a ’79 buick stuck to the back of your bare legs as you 
drive through landscape with no one save that one cassette playing 
over & over, no one to tell you where & when to stop, no one 
waiting for you, summoning you but the sheer heat of sun, 
the silver gleam of hood ornament catching light.