“…the country around us is a circle sunk in the mirage.”
–Tayeb Salih, The Season of Migration to the North

Trudging a barrenness
soaked by illusion,
heat-warped.

Why is there a projection
upon the air? Tireless dictator
can’t succumb to the desert—can’t.

Underneath the shaping
of haze, underneath meaning
is you tethered to wandering.

But a lizard is a lizard–
the cloak of meaning
makes you more.

The country is projected
upon the haze. It is yours.
It has meaning. It is meaning.

Another culture, the sun,
mingles with its air, dissolves
its definiteness.

Now your country is
transitory: the desert becomes
realer than a mirage.

But the sun’s pressing
can’t be all. There is something.
You walk closer. It moves.

Death throbs throughout
her body. (She pushed
the needle, and her eyes
are tethered to the empty,
white ceiling.)

Her mind clings to Michael
who’s fixated on the swings.
He is released and attacks
the playground. Why is he so
happy? Finally, his eyes pull
away from the sand, he waves.
She tries to push a smile,
but she can tell–from his changing
face–he is learning.

The bugs don’t disappoint—
their bodies pop as the light-beam snaps
life away. You like it as well
but in the man, shredded by bullets,
on a show watched by millions.
Something within tunes us
to the greatness of others
dying. I know it’s wrong,
but I’m human, and there are bugs.

I worry about the husky gentleman
that shot Lennon, not because I fear
he’ll come after me, but because he might
be reading this poem. Some bad ideas
are planted by words–their meanings
irrelevant to a brain saturated
by mania and lust. Yet, I still worry
that my innocent verse might form the fuel
for some catastrophic force.

But what if nothing occurs? This poem could enter
for a moment and leave forever, only imparting
a few more minutes filled, or it could be fuel
for a warmer Wednesday evening, leaving
the body more content and the mind
unaltered. . . Somehow, the husky gentleman
has gotten smaller.

The sky is in a fit.
The land whispers
To the wind
To engulf
Our flames.

And when the sun returns,
A few more will have to be buried.
This isn’t our land.

Outside glows, snow sinks
between grass blades
I catch a baseball.

Priest pushes my hand
to know the candle’s flame.

The red wick watches, I fall
into the burning.

Heads bob over waves, another couple
passes. Bennett on his bath towel,
burying his fingers in the sand,
legs pointing toward the sea.

Tries to escape through summer’s haze,
but only recalls the room some years ago:
students speaking of Antigone and he
finally uttering a thought, but his thought
Is thought superfluous. A silence entering
Bennett. Bennett becoming that silence.

But suddenly he is here again,
watching the muttering old man
with his metal detector.
The old man stops, his ugly
voice hushes, and bends
down to grasp the Earth.
He wonders what is there.