dry years

I dried out I was bone and gravel desiccated cartilage teeth joints that did not fit the wind blew through me whistled through my mandibles tunes of longing of emptiness of the desert high pitched vanishing aloft whipping dust into a shimmer of heat silver haze of distance my inner ear its tiny bones the dry clink of my phalanges my nails my baked core cracked my iron rusted my linen my leather my natron salt my alliance with the darkness fell in flakes in powder of stale herbs and dry poultice for the heart wounds I was discolouration on the earth stain of ochre lime rictus dream of waiting centuries to be borne into the future on the backs of white ants and scorpions gathered at the riverbed at half-moon sensing water in their chitin shine beginning the slow work of reassembly