A man stranded in a desert experiences his last moments with a unique rebirth. |
Heat waves wriggle, invisible snakes on the gray line That becomes the border between sky and crimping dust On my back, facing upward into that empty blue The world swells with its convex curve, and I feel I am on the brink of it The earth is spinning much too quickly “Death Valley: Heartland of America ” A mouse trap, tourist trap, my own personal death trap My lips are cracked into spidery flowers of red blood and chapped skin They are becoming tiny replicas of the earthen veins beneath me The sun demands my moisture, and I can do nothing to stop her from taking it She quenches her thirst with salty gulps My sweat, my spittle, my blood, even the teardrops in my eyes Depart me in minuscule droplets, beckoning me goodbye Grab and strain as I might, I cannot call them back My blood is thickening A delicious soup I am becoming, cooked just right at 120 for a day and a half My skin, as red as a roast pig, pulses with a heartbeat that is not its own, not anymore Steam carries off of me in waves, and suddenly– I ignite; I become a bundle of roses, cradled in the softness of their gassy petals I smile as the crackle rises to my neck, as my lips peel back, as hair coils away like incense Underneath the flames, I see the portrait of something else forming There, in the embers that used to be my ribcage, is that not an elegant shape? Between the coils of intestine, could that be a black eye that stares back at me? I smolder beneath the dying sun, a ruin of charcoal and wasted carbon From where it was nestled against the cup of my pelvis A beaky head on a slender neck arises She is the color of poppies, the orange of alarm Her shrill cry burns in the night The phoenix delicately tiptoes between my ribs, peering inquisitively into the holes in my skull Until she alights, wings neon in hot night air |