The sea careened
in a summer stretch,
unfolding its jaws over
bleached-white boulders.

Strangle me with the strings of
my piano,
and waste me away in the desert,
pining for water,
though I’ve never seen the stuff,
leeching through the bare ground,
cracked sand,
piping hot,
my world is a waterless vine,
a portioned meadow of barren moon,
the sad recollection of jewels
which might have been mirages,
sensual and without respite,
the merry hallucinations flickered and fell
flat
back to what must have been
the only world left.