Two Reasons for Going to Burning Man
By Janet Smith
The way to move through a dust storm in the desert
is to wear a green and gold satin cape, handmade
by a woman whom you have just met. She wants
you to have it. On your shoulders, it drags in the dust.
For the first time, you walk like you know who you are.
Later, two fires will consume a figure and a temple.
You watch with the others as sparks fall at your feet.
Funny, you don’t see the metaphor till later:
the way the sacrifice becomes the thing you needed,
the fear of change, how your life needs burning.
Dust like Ash
By Suzanne Roberts
At the top of the desert,
flames tear from a volcano.
A woman’s mercurial smile
on fire, a mouth full of ash.
From the dusty sky,
look out over the carnival of light,
a thousand neon butterflies.
The wooden ladder soon
will burn, choose instead
to remember longing.
The Temple | Black Rock City, Nevada
By Suzanne Roberts
A girl hangs a photograph
of her dead, falls to her knees.
I struggle with not touching her.
Clouds trace wispy shadows
on the dry lakebed.
Sand scatters the red horizon,
softens the world with a film of dust.
Women worship in the sun.
Men sail to the earth. The beat
of a drum rolls across the desert.
A blue fire painted into my eyes.
Our losses—an afterimage
of the yellow sun burned
onto the retina, blinding
but necessary.
