I Love a City That Will Never Love Me Back

The desert stopped crying long ago.
She placed her tears in a prickly pear
and gave me a champagne mirage
where palm trees forget to grow.

Where sweat drenches daylight
and neon sucks the soul from night.

Where drunken marriages flow
as freely as fingers skimming hot skin.

Where vampires sizzle under sparkling sun
and sin in the glow of milky moon.

Where bright lights whisper into the crook
of my neck, kissing me awake.

I know she wears veneers
over her smokey teeth, but
it’s easy to believe anything
when the price is right.

Lady Luck,
will you lift your curtain?
Las Vegas,
will you pretend to love me tonight?

Kendra Nuttall is a copywriter by day and poet by night. Her work has appeared in Spectrum, Sad Girl Review, and Capsule Stories, among others. She is the author of poetry collection, A Statistical Study of Randomness (Finishing Line Press). She lives in Utah. Find her online at kendranuttall.com.