Their hands
clasped,
bleeding,
holding each other’s
the blood mixes
falling into the desert
Like a scarf
that hung
from my window
for years in dust filled rooms
long since taken
to the curb
with the garbage
holding onto the shreds of former beliefs
as the veil
clinging to her hair
fell into a canyon,
as the blood
from her body
in the aftermath
of clasped hands,
harsh words,
liquid absorbed by the sand
The prophet’s new city
built on the foundation of the old
made of the same stones
and familiar history
the fabrications
still fabrications
though the passage of time
brings with it a strange notion
of original, the purity of the before
Change, as that which ages us,
the liability of surrender
weeping for lack of control,
of ways to hide the hurt,
of ways to keep driving forever
running out of gas
Strewn across
what is now a desert’s decades
her love is strung together
like the amputated fingers
of a hand somehow reaching
pretending to be whole
which I now offer you.