Death Valley, Before You Died

Before Beatty, I never saw a truck flip like that.
You shrugged, said: only coyotes do stupid shit like that.

Your tongue was sweet with a warm wit. Your diagnoses, quick.
When you were diagnosed, I had never been hit like that.

I didn’t care if the visitor center thermometer read 124.
Melanoma or no, I needed your skin. I never tasted sweat like that.

We hid in the shade of an abandoned charcoal kiln.
In cool ash and shadows, we said we’d always live like that.

Before hard winters, you whispered, pinyon pines drop the most nuts.
The heat made you weak but I never saw you pick like that.

Pine nuts are pine seeds, little evergreen babies, you taught me.
Help the trees make love, you said. I’d never thought about it like that.

We did. Then, you leaned on me all the way up Coffin Peak.
When day gave up and died, you promised you’d never quit like that.

Will you toast these and remember me? you asked, cracking shells with your teeth.
We ate them raw together and I wish we could still spit like that.

*

Will Falk is a poet, activist, and attorney. His law practice is devoted to providing free legal services to Native American communities working to protect their sacred lands. His first collection of poetry When I Set the Sweetgrass Down was published by Wayfarer Books in 2023.