Visitation Rights Poem by michael hogan

My son coming to the desert in winter
sees spare blades of ocotillo
as still more weeds in an empty lot
miles and miles long
stretching toward the mountain.
And language fails to paint
the spring wash of color along the basin to the south.
I've never seen so many weeds, he says.
I name them: saguaro, prickly pear,
cholla, agave, smiling over
their imminent fruits and blossoms.
So many weeds, he says again.
In April he'd believe, of course,
but there's no money for April.
He thinks it crazy to live in such a place.
Still, he listens to everything I say:
suspicious, careful not to take
a leap of faith beyond my voice
but seeing for all that
a different world: one that fits somewhere
between unicorns and knights in armor,
emperors without clothes and gingerbread houses.
Nothing but weeds a final time
but yet a magic here which pleases him.
Next winter, he asks, may I come back?