My nerves are dry reeds.
They cough his name in the lightest breeze,
they rub together.

Sparks or stars in the hot night,
we crackle like lightning along the riverbed.

The sun casts her jealous eyes down,
she turns the river to cracked clay,
and the wheat dries and dies in the fields.

She will starve us out. No haystacks
lining the paths home, the animals
have all moved on.

Our love is an empty barn,
with dust rising in shafts towards the light.