It may have once been Grande, but its flow
subsides to trickles when the summer sun
drums down. In Albuquerque, levels low
enough to plod across. The drought has won,
and we have lost: the rough oblivion
of climate change. Our cities take a share
of water. Farmers claim their quotas. One
state’s draw affects another’s, while unfair
entitlements and pacts are roused, applied
to native pueblo tribes—and Mexico
as well. The river simply can’t provide
for such demands in desert. Yet we grow
beyond capacity. Our only source
of water shrinks—death runs its errant course.
—
A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, Albuquerque poet Scott Wiggerman is the author of three books of poetry, Leaf and Beak: Sonnets, Presence, and Vegetables and Other Relationships; and the editor of several volumes, including the craft books Wingbeats I & II: Exercises & Practice in Poetry, 22 Poems and a Prayer for El Paso, winner of a NM/AZ Book Award in 2020, and the Southwest prose poem collection Unknotting the Line: The Poetry in Prose.
