Mojave in July
Book Cover Art by Su Limbert.
By Angela M. Brommel
You can’t explain to friends from home how the desert makes it better, but you try:
Imagine a heat so dry that it presses down into the earth, releasing its scent so that it takes on the comforting smell of clay pots in your grandmother’s kitchen when you were a child, or your hideout under the evergreens where you used to sit for hours smelling only the dirt, the sap, the pine.
Imagine a smell that reminds you of the kitchen on holidays: sage, rosemary, and something you chase that is reminiscent of honey, but feels like love.
Some people still fight it. They call the heat oppressive, they call it unrelenting. They have not learned how to live within it.
You must learn to smell the water beneath the surface.
You must learn to let the heat pass through you,
warming your bones, your ligaments, and all the pieces
that you call you.
Let the heat draw out everything unneeded.
Let it put you to bed midday.
Let it make you new.
Photos courtesy of Angela M. Brommel.
Angela M. Brommel is a Nevada writer and curator with Iowa roots, a Mystery Ranch Visiting Artist, and the current Clark County Poet Laureate. She is the author of two books, Mojave in July (Tolsun Books) and Plutonium & Platinum Blonde (Serving House Books). Her poetry has been published in the North American Review, The Best American Poetry blog, and many other journals and anthologies.
A 2018 Red Rock Canyon Artist in Residence, she served as the inaugural poet of the program. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles, and an MA in Theatre from the University of Northern Iowa. At Nevada State University she serves as Senior Advisor and Executive Director for the Arts and as affiliate faculty. You can also find her at The Citron Review as Editor-in-Chief.
Learn more about Angela and her work on her website angelmbrommel.com.