The desert air was
stealing water
from the children’s skin.

Their German Shepherd
sprinted along the rusting fence,
her paws flinging dust storms and
leaving a foot-deep moat in their path.

The children’s mother filled the *****’s trench to its brim
with water from the plastic hose.
It almost melted in her hands--

its oily rubber stench

gave her a headache and she went to rest in the
air-conditioned kitchen, leaving
her ******* son in the care of the middle child,
the daughter from the same father.

Her ******* daughter sat waiting for her,
quivering in a wooden chair.

As her mother rested, her
tears pooled on the table, and she
stuttered to Mother about what their father
stole from her body.

Their mother’s blood became bile,
realizing the man she married
was a monster.

The mother stood up from her splintered chair
to gaze through the murky window
at the children she bore with the beast.

They skidded on their tummies across the only wetland
in the lowly desert town, giggling and
splashing their limbs in the filthy yard.

She wondered how she would tell her son
that they were moving far away, without daddy.

She frowned at the daughter of the *******;
could she have at least
one stable child?