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She No Longer Walks the Hills Judith Skillman There rattlesnakes wait, coiled like turbans at the foot of a single ficus tree. The hip’s lost its oil, discs bulge in an image, the white of inflammation like sun over the desert scattering its hot pain. Only succulents survive here– cactus roses in niche, palms spreading knife leaves, lemons on a scrawled bush now turned to limes. She no longer ascends the path written by those who went before. Hers is to wander along the veranda near the gazebo, to huddle in a child’s pose on liquid marble in the foyer of the grand house wondering how she will descend past the scorpion, the velvet ants, and those black widows who kill their husbands after mating with them. |