Someone’s leaving water for you
in the last sandy stretch before you
reach Ajo, if you do. Same water
left on Earth for us by the luminous
icy-tailed comets. Same water
Moses struck loose from the rock.
Water of milk welled in the breast
for the naked new traveler pressed
from the first watery house
through the wet lips of genesis. I see
Jesus turning the creosote bushes
to clay vases full of the freshest
quaffs for the lightheaded weaving
wanderers north. And Mary’s tears,
free of salt, spilled on the tongues
of the flaccid pallid little ones
in the arms of their parched bearers.
Some One leaves water for you
in a plastic jug as you come crossing
toward liberty or a cage.
You’ll need this offering first
fallen from space filling your veins
when you meet the officers face
to face. And may the water-bearer
be not arrested, not detained,
nor convicted for such grace.
May the one who’s left water walk
the Sonora back and forth,
as if there were no border.
Jed Myers is author of Watching the Perseids (winner of the Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award), The Marriage of Space and Time (MoonPath Press), and several chapbooks, including Dark’s Channels (winner of the Iron Horse Literary Review Chapbook Award) and Love’s Test (winner of the Grayson Books Chapbook Competition). Recent recognitions include the Prime Number Magazine Award for Poetry, The Southeast Review’s Gearhart Poetry Prize, and The Tishman Review’s Edna St. Vincent Millay Poetry Prize. Recent poems appear in Rattle, Poetry Northwest, The American Journal of Poetry, Southern Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He is Poetry Editor for the journal Bracken.