;
Red Rock
Cane Wash, Utah
Hiking in, the night silhouettes
the canyon, tall lines traced by the moon.
I meet an oblong angel with streaming wings,
drawn on rock. Ants trek across his feet.
By firelight, I swim, cradled in the river.
Bats glide low on the water.
The smell of rain wakes me.
I watch it play against the wall of red faces.
A tiny window looks down
like a blue eye.
Deja Earley’s poems, fiction, and essays have previously appeared or are forthcoming in journals like Arts and Letters, Borderlands, and Utne Reader. She has received honors in several writing contests, including the 2008 Joan Johnson Award in poetry,and the 2004-2005 Parley A. and Ruth J. Christensen Award. She was awarded first place in the 2011 Eugene England Memorial Personal Essay Contest, and she had several poems included in Fire in the Pasture. She completed a PhD in English and Creative Writing at the University of Southern Mississippi and she now lives in Tucson, Arizona.