Rose of Jericho

It was a long way to here

Blind miles where

Only the highway moved

Unfurling like a black tongue

Or the lone headlight

Burrowing into the night

Deliberate as sorrow

Convinced of its own existence

It’s not until the

Outskirts of Santa Fe

That the radio finds him

Full of static as it is

And that same old line

Where hearts lie

Unfaithful in the pines

Leaves the road tear-blurred

Because darlin’ its funny

How the things you remember

Are the flatness of his fingernails

Or the smell of smoke in his hair

And for tonight, let’s not tell the stars

That they are already dead

Just leave the echo to burn

While our lips hold the lie

And the car grits to a stop

On the edge of the desert

Memory falling like rain

Upon the Rose of Jericho


A native of Pennsylvania, l.e. Archer graduated from Endicott College and currently resides in Salem, Massachusetts.  Specializing in fiction, short prose and poetry, some of her previous work has appeared in The American Dissident, Avocet and the Deronda Review.  She is currently writing her first novel Risen.