The Warm October Day

            The air is dry,
            as it should be.
            The eighty degree sun
            drapes itself,
            languid,
            over rooftops and sidewalks,
            over arms and necks.
            In the distance,
            a valley of haze,
            which makes one wonder
            if it was more
            than local fires
            that made the Spaniards
            name our harbor
            Bay of Smoke.
            The San Gabriels,
            outline barely seen beneath the shroud,
            veiling dreams of desert nights
            where the sea of stars swallows you whole,
            where ghosts roam the streets of Calico,
            and shadows slither across cracked ground.
            Once it was a summer day,
            years ago,
            rusty pitstops in the Mojave,
            abandoned.
            But every year
            the Indian summer
            resurrects the dead,
            old memories
            on a warm October day.