There’s no one to speak to.
Pessoa is quiet.
Even him.
As in the song my friend
has gone into the desert.
The light is off.
I see.
The stars above
I know nothing of now.
Even though I studied them,
from birth.
Why does it take light
so long
to reach me?
The caravan is dark.
I see. That.
I pace.
I am not hollow.
I tap my chest.
My head is empty
because my heart won’t move.
Is it playing possum?
Oncoming cars illuminate trees
on the bend.
No desert.
A morepork.
A morepork.
In the dark.
I have journeyed into the desert
so deep
I cannot tell it’s a desert anymore.
And all around me are mirages.
Why were there columns there?
With fallen pediments?
A ruin.
Sections lay on the ground
of fluted columns.
Otherwise,
sand.
I should get out.
Of the desert.
Since it is not
mutually acknowledged
it is.
Imagine that argument!
I travelled on foot.
I still have my boots.
No boots
will do
to shift this caravan
from here.
It’s dark, anyway.
Inside.
Outside, the stars
are arrayed across
the heavens
like broken things.
Pray now.
God is in the sky.
And I so want the rest.
I sleep
duplicitously:
part carries on.
Dreams.
Part dies.
There is less to wake up
and less to dream
each night.
And so,
joyless
joy.
Because my dreams
are still rich and exhausting
and my peculiar desire
to remember and repeat
is as strong as ever.
But the tube
which allows me to share
stops halfway.
I wake up
confused.
Less.
Loved ones,
sons, daughters,
are such wicked creatures
that they almost take pleasure
in this diminution.
Where are they going?
Will I see them again?
Hot wax burns my skin
off a play I didn’t get
to direct.
I understand the theory.
But more,
I feel the blanks.
A candle spat
then guttered.
Out.
We laughed.
We knew so much.
About laughter.
Night closes.
No one hears.
A distant fridge.
I don’t want
to carry on.
Speaking
anyway.
