37: 40

I have fled for miles in the Hamad.

There is no permanent structure, just the vibration between

water and salt. In the solvency erected by minds

the fresco's enamel is chipped away. People are losing their color

but the story is stuck in its shape. My breath wears its dunes.

Forty days is a long time alone; he took it

outside, removed its armament, left its appeal in shelter,

in town, in comparison.

He, the solvent.

Here I stand and I can feel the red in this place, a trespass

radiating somewhere in the lines to the horizon.

His absence must be even

farther out.

Recipes are paths.

Someone has been before, is there already.

This one reads:

forty days

with nothing

but this

mind and its trespass.

Is that so hard. By the numbers one fish and a bread loaf will feed

every belly full of love. This would be easy to carry but I have

this soft shell.

By the numbers, it takes seven days

to make a world but only

an afternoon to sacrifice your son, yourself, win back

your creation's gaze.

The miracle is death; the apocalypse, a meditation

where the mind falls down;

the greatest work

is done in the desert

alone; we are the desert;

there is enough