POEM: The Last

The Last

Between then and now—

the puncturevine ravines,

thorns that crowned our feet, how holy,

rattlesnakes threading the current,

water dragging where we'd go,

peeling us from the stone

and carrying us laughing

toward whatever ending

(We never cared.)

Pie warm on her one hundred and twelve degree window sill—

Ants bright as fired rubies.

Our grandmother in her seventies,

bent to the thistle, tugging,

the sun hammering the desert

into its final making—

and her, still prosecuting weeds.

The cats never had tails.

I never thought to ask,

they seemed half rabbit,

that day near the ravine.

The next, the lake—

fish in the weeds, hot spring—

hot enough to cook the body brought into it.

The whole country of that summer

wanted to bite, sting, burn, drag, drown—

and we moved through it

like we were made of the same material.

Our laughter still lives out there somewhere

in the scrub

and the heat's shimmer.

I went back and could hear it.

I went back

and found it resting

in our grandmother's hands.

Not lost.

Only carried.

Taken

wherever the hands

de nuestra familia go.

We didn't know we were lithe

through the last,

Marni Fraser

0601.2026

Photo | 02.2026