in the carnage across the road
lives a pod of film.
7.99 from the pharmacy, across
from the laundromat,
and i have left it
in carcasses
and skeletons
of foliage.
the travelers who live
behind the thicket of cactus
tell me of subway tile and redwood elevators
but soil takes my tongue
where the highway cuts through my mouth,
and the cicadas leave their skin outside
my bedroom window, where
the moon is
the cold end of an eraser.
opportunity has its own wheels and i either
make my own
or catch on
quick.
Heather Laurel Jensen attends Red Mountain High School in Mesa, Arizona. She is co-president of her Scholastic Art and Writing Awards affiliate, where she has been awarded ten times, and she was a participant in the 2017 Adroit Journal Mentorship for poetry. Her work is published or forthcoming in Best Teen Writing of Arizona and Polyphony HS.