IN A DESERT WAITING FOR RAIN
Even your words
hold their tongue,
coiling into a mouth
of white sand.
All night you and I
hide from the wind
tracking photographs
scattered like leaves
in the attic with flashlights,
looking for missing links
between negatives.
The moon tattoos
words of salt on the dark windows
of our tongues and something we forgot
to say turned like a doorknob in a stranger’s hand.
Dust clouds drill
our hollow eyes
into an open sky,
pulling earth
in all directions.
Whether I move
backward or ahead,
an overcoat of ambivalence stalks
between us with a great thirst.
We pretend to go
beyond what we’ve learned.
And from the oasis
of your shadow,
a promised rain
sprays through me
like a blizzard of stones.