Today's poem is by Natalie Padilla Young

A Floridian Says, I Could Never Live in a Place Like That.
       

A few creeks scattered about,
the sound of rounded pebbles and mallards
behind gates.
A set of sprinklers, the bathroom faucet—
the only ways to wet July knuckles.

An instant after Brigham Young decreed
in high fever, This is the right place,
a number of his saints said,
No.
Spun their wagon wheels and blistered heels
against cracks in the dirt
to return East or urge their oxen forward
to promises of something gold,
something moist.

This place is a high-mountain desert.
A desert.

The aliens don't care
how many pollens itch the throat
or if you see Begonias that thrive—
those things stay alive
because someone hoses them down
every day.

Every day
someone
hoses them down.

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Copyright © 2023 Natalie Padilla Young All rights reserved
from All of This Was Once Under Water
Quarter Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission