Wellspring

I've heard girls say he's pretty-
bones stretching upwards
like they've just awoken
beneath his cheeks,
each blink the beat of
a Nutmeg Moth's marbled wings.
Alluvial fans drain their minerals
into his eyes, copper veins running
through irises not the blue I'd expected,
but green, a sea-glass screen against
the white sand of his scleras.

I say he's an oasis,
like biting into prickly pear fruit
when all I've had against my tongue
is wind flung grit for days
sliding down the slopes of weeks.

Gentle parenthesis of an overbite
presses a curve into lips
peaked like Cassiopeia's throne.
I run a finger along the Yucca
spikes growing up his chin,
stopping at the edge
of a jawline squared as a mesa.

He's not pretty when he's angry-
brows form a deep crevice, send
earthquake ripples up his forehead,
and he becomes a hallucination:
nothing but smashed quartz,
two peaked dunes and a broken green bottle.