It was a long way to here
Blind miles where
Only the highway moved
Unfurling like a black tongue
Or the lone headlight
Burrowing into the night
Deliberate as sorrow
Convinced of its own existence
It’s not until the
Outskirts of Santa Fe
That the radio finds him
Full of static as it is
And that same old line
Where hearts lie
Unfaithful in the pines
Leaves the road tear-blurred
Because darlin’ its funny
How the things you remember
Are the flatness of his fingernails
Or the smell of smoke in his hair
And for tonight, let’s not tell the stars
That they are already dead
Just leave the echo to burn
While our lips hold the lie
And the car grits to a stop
On the edge of the desert
Memory falling like rain
Upon the Rose of Jericho
A native of Pennsylvania, l.e. Archer graduated from Endicott College and currently resides in Salem, Massachusetts. Specializing in fiction, short prose and poetry, some of her previous work has appeared in The American Dissident, Avocet and the Deronda Review. She is currently writing her first novel Risen.