BIO
M. Miranda Maloney is the founder of Mouthfeel Press in El Paso, Texas. She is the author of The Lost Letters of Mileva (Pandora Lobo Productions Press, 2014) and The City I Love (Ranchos Press, 2011). Her poetry and essays have appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review, MiPoesias, The Catholic Reporter, The Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum, and others. She is poetry editor for BorderSenses Literary Journal, and Outreach Educational Writer for the Smithsonian Latino Virtual Museum. She lives in the outskirts of El Paso with her husband and three children.
Tearing Down
When the dozers break the spine of
yuccas, bury the creosote, the sap of soaps
under plans for another subdivision,
where do the burrow owls go,
the lavish tarantulas, the sweeping paws
of roadrunners and slender mice?
When the raptor disappears amidst rising clouds
of sand and cataracts sweep the last of
dung beetles, no mounds of brush to hold
the rain cheerfully back
what do we do?
When all is dust and concrete, what will be left
to astonish?