sand

Rid yourself of all shattered glass
all the fucking bones
remove all the mirrors
excoriate all wood from the wastes.
Let the desert in
let winds eat everything away
even sound.
Let there be only sky
light
and crystalline sand.
Allow one single insect
a beetle clicking its wings
dying from want of water.
Let the poem contain only the word was
which indicates the past tense of to be
no more struggles with hope in the future tense.
Fill your mouth full of sand
spit it out
open your lips and breathe until they become
flakes of translucent skin.
Is it God that is nascent in desert?
What is this patten of shadowworn by a wandering Sun?
Nothing but light crossing an infinity
grain after grain
shifted by wind
into transecting crescents
rippling on and on.
All words are spelled there
and buried—
footprints eroded.
A young antelope
separated from its mother
finds her tracks and follows
but in the wrong direction.
The world itself is not cruel
hasn't God painted this desert?
The whole universe can be mapped
into a single grain of sand.
This is only circumstance.
We sift without knowing.
Not one is righteous.
Even the Moon
riddled with junk
is no longer holy.