Kristin Isgett & Scot Siegel

ENTERING THE DESERT

1.
they prayed and laughed and were full of one another in the calming wake of evening's fire...	the june sky rocketed over latent heat made his palms ache her feet burned blue the air, tinctured with sage...
2.
arriving with a smile and a kiss and a hope for further exploration...	dusk, the hills' ruddy silhouette swept the lakebed bare blushed the east buttes red the moon's contours: the warm crevices...
in dawn's first beams dancing in the darkness he basked in her warm privileges...	she gave no refrain they staved the dawn she made his blood roil they shared desert confections
3.
with the taste of the moon filling his senses complete and still...	she descended the tamarisk burning like a hawk's eye before a kill
just touching the note that sang in the rising light... how the day sounds!	she was birdsong in the willows oh, how they would learn how love must run aground!

Kristin Isgett lives and works in the Upstate of South Carolina. She studied journalism at The University of SC and was a staff writer/intern at The Greenville News in the 1990's. She currently writes music reviews and a music blog at examiner.com/greenville. Kristin also writes poetry, essays, and bits of observational humor. "Entering The Desert" is her first collaboration and first publication of a poem. Scot Siegel lives in Oregon with his wife and two daughters. In his day job he works as an urban planning consultant. Siegel’s poetry books include Some Weather (Plain View Press, 2008), Untitled Country (Pudding House Publications, 2009), and Skeleton Says (forthcoming from Finishing Line Press). Poetry Northwest and the Oregon State Library selected Siegel’s Some Weather as one of Oregon's 150 Outstanding Oregon Poetry Books. A second full-length collection is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry in January 2012. Siegel serves on the board of trustees of the Friends of William Stafford and edits the online poetry journal Untitled Country Review.