My hummingbird friend fans her wings in the spray from the hose. Then she settles on a yucca spear not a foot from my face. We like each other. We like these quiet moments together. Gazing, and breathing. Gazing, and breathing.

august dawn
the cool of the day
evaporates

Cynthia Anderson

has ten poetry books in print, most recently The Missing Peace (Velvet Dusk Publishing, 2021). Her poems frequently appear in journals and anthologies, including Spillway, Crab Creek Review, Apercus, Askew, San Pedro River Review, Mojave River Review, The Coil, and Split Rock Review, among others. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. In 2020, she took up short-form poetry and has been exploring haiku, senryu, cherita, and related forms.

Cynthia is co-editor of the anthology A Bird Black As the Sun: California Poets on Crows & Ravens (Green Poet Press). She makes her home in the Mojave Desert near Joshua Tree National Park.

Author’s website: www.cynthiaandersonpoet.com