Of Desert Rats (A Tale of Survival)

 

Photo © Jennifer Wagner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even after the bandages

are off, my post-surgery hand

still feels like I am waving

a Mickey Mouse glove

as I walk the block

in Phoenix heat.

 

But I won’t duck into

the cool A/C yet—

not while I’m watching

the old black-and-white

neighborhood street cat

chase off a coyote

five times his size,

then saunter back, leap up,

and stretch himself long

across my neighbor’s truck roof.

 

Wile E. returns, crouched

behind a pile of Apache-gold rocks, waiting.

 

I love this desert.

People keep trying to

put a fork in its belly,

proclaiming we’re cooked.

 

Oh no. 

Tomorrow there may be

blood in the street,

but it won’t belong

to us desert-rat

cool cats.

 

 

© 2026 Jennifer Wagner

Still Standing

 

"Montezuma Castle" Photo © Jennifer Wagner

 

Neither castle, nor Aztec,

not even Sinaguan.

I don’t crumble

 

beneath what you think of me,

nor what you’ve labeled me

with your tiny tongue.

 

Called something

I never was—

I outlast your angry names.

 

I survive by the hands

that built me, and survivors know

the power in their own true names.

 

You call me

ruined.

Yet, I remain.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

Montezuma Castle is a misnomer.  It was neither a castle nor built by nor for the Aztec emperor Montezuma.  Those who did build it are referred to as “Sinagua” people, meaning “without water” in Spanish.  Despite being called “Sinagua” they actually had plenty of water.  Montezuma means “lord frowns in anger.”

To all my other survivors out there.

For What’s Going On?  Ruins

Also, after posting poems for years without process notes, I seem to be on a kick of doing it these days.