I realize it's two or three comparisons away But somewhere in the background of the calmest of your days A scrap of paper floats a thousand feet up in the air Abandoned by some dust devil that died and left it there The wind digs deep and peels up the skin of the land The howling current erases the prints from my hand I know you are a creature of soil and air If one becomes too heavy the other simply escapes from there When you unleash the sand and wind I am suspended by your eyes Squirming like a beetle pinned
Between the devil and the deep blue sky The wind licks off the tar paper with sandy cat tongues Numberless horned bullets lodge in a lover's lungs At last I see the ghosts which have been with me all along Spinning on an axis pointed straight up at the sun When the substance of our life together becomes too much And you threaten to remove the whirlwind of your touch I am only a piece of trash up a mile high Grabbing at the falling sand which held me in the sky