Southwest Mars

by Deborah P. Kolodji and Ann K. Schwader

dust devils
in the Argyre Basin
shadow tracks

blood fractal
evolving out of wind

alien shapes
in the wrong quadrant
mind geometry

on the rim
of this airless desert
saguaros

skin prickles in voids
of companionship

petroglyphs
lacking any referent
but time

Copyright © 2005, Deborah P. Kolodji and Ann K. Schwader

Deborah P. Kolodji is the divorced mother of three who works in information technology to fund her poetry obsessions. She is a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, the California State Poetry Society, and the Haiku Society of America. Her work has appeared in numerous places both on and off the web. She is the editor and co-founder of Amaze: The Cinquain Journal.

Ann K. Schwader's first collection of dark fiction, Strange Stars & Alien Shadows, was recently published by Lindisfarne Press. Her poetry has appeared in Tales of the Unanticipated, Mythic Delirium, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, Strange Horizons, Modern Haiku, The Formalist, and elsewhere. She lives and writes in Westminster, CO.