She goes on four wheels, the hunter Guillinna
across desert toward chaparral, fluid
motion through pelting rain, dirt brown reverie
turned. No stranger, she, to solitary
mass. No wonder why her autonomous flight.
Resolute, she returns to trusted breeze,
howling wolf memorized to greet her desire.
Shortchanged, she listens to desert breath, cactus
strands recalled to measure her reason. Into
The cavernous night she leads, yellow hairbreeze
through running eyes focused on the hunt, her brainy
bin storage for flood or fire or quake of grief
to lapse her mind’s content—to build, finally,
skyscrapers. No matter the ground grows roots, vertical
blooms, rainstriped clouds. She strives to hold the wheel,
slightly turns to see it hold and hold its
shadowgear, rearboard, frontboard, sideboard past
its radical time to face her single lane
hunt, flat on ground rolling to relieve her
childhousetreasure bound with mild embrace. She
drives and drives through rain as screen to grasp desire,
beauty’s jeweled relief, to cradle deep mountains
on both sides, all desert horizon and dark
reverie. Into this brainy bin, ripe with instincts
bloomed to draw it down, night to drive feet across
time, she seeks her body dress, Guillinna
the hunter, masking her normal repertoire
to lead away from sheer interpretation.
She goes on four wheels, the hunter Guillinna
to revered roads, creeks, riverbeds supple
with gaze to blind faith and impressions of fate. Hands
on wheel, she delivers the fire out of her, Guillinna
the hunter across desert mass and break of steel.
Originally published in Guillinna on Four Wheels by Sandra Squire Fluck. Available on Apple Books and Amazon Kindle.
2 comments
The energy of this poem pulls me, tumbles me through the landscape.
The poem has a special origin. My father was in the military, and we traveled cross-country to wherever he was transferred. It was on those trips that I fell in love with the desert, and “Guillinna on Four Wheels” originated with these cross-country experiences. The child becomes the hunter Guillinna in this poem, the adult woman finally in charge. You can read about these trips on the About page.