Salt Dream

hot sun, earthenware ground tired and unyielding
soles of my feet grate and sting on hard sandals hard clay
the horizon frowns and I can taste copper from here.

I can’t stop running my tongue against the backs of my teeth
but they’ve been dry since the rains of creation fell
on this plain

I’ve been walking to meet her from before 
she was a distant speck,
an irritant grain between sky
and
earth
and I can tell the clouds are waiting.

her hesitating feet are bare, her chin angled searing arc of her
cheekbone defiant out of her burnous.

I let my traveling breath out in a sigh
but nothing changes.

white staring eyes unblinking cry
the cost of her look; matching salt tears start on my cheek
surprising me

I taste that longing for the only home we’ve ever known, she and I
and it sits in my throat like

the groan behind us means the clay has finally failed
cracked earth feet staved through the ankles, and falling
falling.

as the colossal wreck of empire must be hurtling towards us,
I step forward
and brush her salt lips with mine
– no more holy I, yet
the Gardener calls.

she deserved this. didn’t she? the command was so clear
don’t
look
back.