“Lightning Farm” by Jordan Hirsch

I tiptoe, decrease the surface area
between me and a million
tiny pinpricks, shattered quartz
baking in the white hot sun.

          Keeping us on our toes is a type of long leash.

Watch the skies for any
promise of change, a
different type of burning
than the sand beneath us.

          One yank on the rope pulls our necks back in line.

Thrust the metal rod as far
down as I can into the heart
of the beast. Maybe I’ll kill it.
Maybe I’ll wound it and have to wait.

          Anything you keep pulling on eventually frays.

Walk ten meters and do it again,
sporadic spokes along the landscape
waiting for rain, for booms,
for streaks across a pitchblack sky.

          Everything that snaps has recoil.

Light it up. Turn this sand
that bogs us down, trips
up our feet, into glass,
a window to another world.

          Don’t blame us when your action’s reaction bites you.

Can you imagine a world
where the sand doesn’t erode
but, crystallized, floats on strings
around us, amplifying light?

          Light it up from heaven, the sacred strike that you deserve.

Jordan Hirsch writes speculation fiction and poetry in Saint Paul, MN, USA, where she lives with her husband. Her work has appeared with Liminality Magazine, The Future Fire, and other venues. Find her overuse of Star Trek gifs on Twitter: @jordanrhirsch.