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Keith Polette

Late Night Sounds West of El Paso

A freight train drags the darkness, with the whoosh of a heavy curtain closing, past a distant dim-lit house where ranchera music, like an array of bright bats, skitters out of a small radio on a kitchen table, as a knife chopping chiles keeps a steady syncopation on the cutting board. In a vast orchard, pecans begin to drop from husks, hitting the ground like the muffled beats of a snare drum. Deeper in the desert, coyotes, with heads raised, with throats as open as pipe organs, call to the moon like supplicants begging for grace on a night that is slowly receding into silence.

broken doorbell
the woodpecker knocking
on my wall

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About the Author

Keith Polette lives in El Paso, Texas. His book of haiku, The New World, was published by Red Moon Press.