She is xeriscaping her land,
making it grow the spare
plumage of its western place,
where earth meets sky
without intervention of mountains.

She is determined to make
the water table work for her,
learn to live in drought
when the lean skin of love
is no longer with her,
when she must fight to stay alive.

Next spring, she'll appreciate
the lone bloom on the cactus,
grasses that deny thirst and thrive.
Her landscape will be natural then
with only the wistful though of rain
to cloud its borders, to remind her.