A little town in the middle of nowhere in the New Mexico high desert, about halfway between the Very Large Array and the ruins of the Martha’s Black Dog coffeeshop and organic grocery. I haven’t been there in quite a while. It might not be an almost-ghost town any more. But it is still so in my head.

Also of course, Magdalene is the prettiest whore in all of literature. That was a different desert.

I wonder where she is now. Probably dust. Possibly at the right hand of god, a good daughter-in-law at last.

Either way she lives on in the words.

It’s the same for the town, though the words are mostly still inside me.

Perhaps that’s the thing that needs fixing most.

Magda, dear harlot, you’re own your own.