One Mississippi
Two Mississippi
Three Mississippi
I first saw you in the desert
Beneath a crescent moon
Where the scorpion and asp
Fight over dust
Stone pillars
In the belly of a dune
Your face half covered
As you ride a white horse

Don't come back
See no evil
It must have been
A dream
Or at least
I awoke to the sound of rain
As it fell in the jungle around me
In the mist of morning
The vines cling and wrap
And monkeys barked like dogs
The snake coiled on the branch
On a log you sit cross-legged
Smiling
Or maybe

You were imagined
When I was stranded at sea
Having fever dreams on the back
Of an orange saftey raft
Until the sun burned the skin
As the fever climbed
Blue cool water beneath me
I fall in
Letting the cold wake me
For a moment
From the terrors
The clear blue water
Sun shining through
I saw you below the waves
Smiling
Turning to kick down into the deep black

I followed you
Watching your white calves kick
Up and down
Following you deeper
Long after my lungs gave way
I descended
Until sunlight couldn't reach me
And your warm fingers
Touched my face
In the frigid deep
And then
You
Became everything