Desert Song

The desert beckons.

Breathing fire into her veins,

The sand grating beneath her papyrus skin, bruising her milky eyelids,

Weaving wreaths of moon cacti, a trail of blood in her snaky hair -

The desert chants.

Beyond the smoky lure of kohl-rimmed eyes,

Creeping into the crevices of her skull,

In the sinuous tunnels of her ears, rustling

Within the stealthy airways of her lungs.

Staring out of a lucent veil into the pitiless blue of

A watery mirage: shimmering stripes of black and gold

In the blank white heat. Hark!

The desert calls.

The desert moves,

In rippling waves of dry, pure sand, piling up

Higher still, and higher, in hills and vales

Tossing and swerving in perpetual storm,

The desert flows.

In a tremendous crescendo of pain,

Surging up in a boiling rage,

The desert in me,

Like the bottomless wailing of a pharaoh owl in the wind,

Calls out in searing notes,

To the desert in you.