Lauren Tess

LAUREN TESS

Sepulveda Pass

Shining and unstoppable
we the creature wend up
out of the valley. As one wave
we press together and expand
toward the narrow gap
through which we'll spill
out over the mountains.
The slopes closing in ahead are
black with cloud-shadow,
black with carbon particles
left when fire split apart
the cells of their few trees.
The wedge of sky beyond is
white-dense with water
made an unwelcoming grey
by our own particles.
We, the trespassing alien,
cannot pause or turn back.
We arc over the dark apogee
and pour headlong,
one and all, into fog.

Paean

After an uncivilly late breakfast
we walked from cafe to store

Palm fronds were falling
in a fully fledged wind

Cars careered around them
along a paved order overrun by chaos

The neighborhood is overrun

The other day I heard the wrenching
crack of a sycamore branch
before I saw it fall feet away from me

I've gone on night walks where
I've suddenly encountered
a rogue coyote down from the park

And they say it's safe on the sidewalk

I've seen plenty of black widows
in the less-swept stretches

And skunks, probably primed to spray
with all these threats wheeling around

All of our efforts and still
nowhere's safe

Lauren Tess lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She has poetry published in Tar River Poetry, the Saranac Review, and Tampa Review.