Sarah Avento
Sarah Spaulding Avento is a recent graduate of the MFA program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and was formerly an Editorial Assistant at The Believer and LitHub. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, Hare’s Paw, New Limestone Review, Red Ogre Review, and Sheepshead Review. She now lives back in her beloved Tennessee mountains and will never again take trees for granted.
Test Site
I.
parched
mountains
the shape of wind
iron motes
filling the air
yellow
distance between
foot and refuge
nightmaring
shadows
purpling to grey
no road
no land
this yellow
no such container
for atomic
breakdown
sand dissolves
in shoeprint
nothing moves
in the valley
sun scorched
waves and
waves and
waves
II.
trace the river’s route
in cerulean sky
melting over
volcanic scraps
pacing shed canyon
sides walking
upside down
live in the glare
of thin atmosphere
getting thinner
lime green dust
uranium’s kiss
III.
a desert must
eventually give way
not all is yet
drydeep pool
for canyon to mine
the granite curve
solitary spaces
everything pulling
back to an ocean
IV.
what fault
lines split
fight sun’s howl
lingering
sand castles
build a new bank
you are a border
you are surrounded
