Across latitudes of scrub and dune
a fiery wind skips, fine-tuning the arcs
and folds of your body. I have never
been to the desert, though zephyrs
dusted upslope to the small house
where we lived. Wherever you lie now
is dry, I imagine, sun in decline
and catenaries of shadow stretched out
from you as in photographs, close-up,
of human sandscapes: cleft of elbow,
crest of thigh, wind-swept shoulder.
I have studied them, meandering
through a gallery of you, no
sense of scale, no oasis anywhere.
Copyright A.E. Stringer 2009
