We are more or less the difference between us, I kneel.
You look down on me, unknowingly,
one of many congregating in the midnight gorges
and zinc jags streaming beneath you and the blonde
Lufthansa girl dispensing juices. She drifts through
the isle, stenciling
her pillbox hat onto your fondest memories before you turn away
again, wanting more. The earth below is otherworldly;
Alps smack the eye.
Literally outdoors, the room is addressing
a triangular
horse when you arrive, “Though it might seem hopeless
to find a comfortable arrangement between your banal
pursuits, Zodiacal warnings, Gemütlichkeit, and self-regard
we see nature
sometimes provides a solution in strato-cumulo patterning
on the white sky.” It directs as best it can a speedy
removal of these
life-size props, grinding the horizon into time. Somewhere
in the treeless wastes, another airplane’s shadow skips—we’re
in it. Starlight dives splashless into daytime.
Filled with the sands of the Rub al Khali,
my Onasakus dimple the desert floor. It whips a dune
buggy hood with
sheets while Ud drones from the open passenger
door. Through its window, you see al Liwa’s coign
advancing. You
hike your abaya and book to the truth, Khulood. Your lips—Allure Laque in Dragon
smearing stoplight like a river—purse. The desert
makes flats of your pumps. You want to drive, you say. O come on,
Jake, 180
kilometers ocean, degrees vision. It’s this kind
of material thinking thought,
balking to be acted, triggering regret, insists.
You stoke the fantasy by doing nothing. Headlong the awkward
seeking you meant to avoid, dowels,
tape, old grocery
bag, fishing wire—cut a diamond shape and cross the dowels between
the cardinal directions—good. Now, with the wind in your face, increase
the undertow velocity by kicking your legs violently out, left, right,
etc., shooting
the date trees back in that time
you spent—was it running? This tugging at your hands is
a simulation of the resistance meeting the deep-sea
submersible’s robotic claws. Boring into the dark entrance
in the cruise ship’s plated hall, the spotlight beams are stiff
as sheet metal. You exhale. The dust you see is embedded
8 inches in the glass.
