I have this vision.
It is of myself, pretentious enough,
in a lone clay-brick mesa out amongst
the red, plateaued deserts of Babylon.
The air is burnt and stale with heat,
and there is a nonexistent breeze that
barely cuts through that
open wound of a window upon which
hangs from itself one white, translucent curtain.

There is a typewriter in the corner,
by the window. Also a chair.
Upon this of which I sit, looking outwards.
The scalding oppression of the heat,
the smacking taste of dust in the
dregs of late summer,
burning holes in my senses as they
numb themselves from the climate.
One cannot think of anything else
when the body is under such complete
submission by the force of nature.

So I write, in that chair there by the window,
with its lone, white shade almost
shimmering in the air.
I write about the dust,
and the heat,
and the endless plains of ochre,
simply because nothing else can
exist amongst the total
subjugation of the senses.