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Ochoa’s Farm
I put up the season’s hot chilis, freshly drum-roasted
slimy green seaweed farmed in the sands of an ancient
seabed in Brawley, near Mexico, scuppered desert land.
I strip burnt skin from smooth muscle, the stinging
passion of jellyfish singed into my hands, tingling my
tongue. I caress their peppery stems, calmly rinse their
tiny seeds, tuck their hearts, smooth this contraband,
pack a dozen ziplock bags away, stash of secret things.
Tonight they’ll freeze, and plump gray thunderheads
bigger than sperm whales will swim across the line.
Ruth Nolan is a poet and an Associate Professor of English at College of the Desert in Palm Desert. She has worked extensively with desert writers and is currently editing a book of desert literature
for Heyday Books.
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