The Oil Well, by Rebeca Ladrón de Guevara

The Heart, photograph by Dillon H. Fuller (USA). Contemporary.

The Oil Well

Let the bull wheel wind around
my legs and thighs
further tightening the loveless line.

Derrick-poised, arid figure of luck and charm,
I grew scales and wide-eyes.
For love of country, progress, mankind.

Bringing calm to elements enraged,
no man knew me to be anything other than 
wooden, flesh-coloured, sacred and divine.

Decades-bound 
by the corroding drilling line,
I could’ve gone on like this forever.

Perfect skin now burnt and dry
from desert winds, 
solitude and time.

Steel cable fraying scales
turning delicate toes 
into five bent, rusted nails.

It was then,
I felt your talons 
bound by the same pulling line.

In our self-imposed restraint, 
we wrapped the cable
tight around us

For once,
not working
against the wheel.

Rebeca Ladrón de Guevara

Rebeca Ladrón de Guevara lives in Los Angeles, California. She received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Chapman University. Her fiction has previously appeared in Chicago Literati, Genre, Sonora Review and Badlands Literary Journal. In 2008, she was the recipient of the Elizabeth George Foundation grant for emerging writers.

​Dillon H Fuller is a musician and photographer. He lives in Santa Ana, California.