Wasteland

We don't always know
what we're doing:
the knife at our wrist,
the gun pointed, the lye
in our throat. In a space,
immense as morning or narrow
as a nostril for breathing,
we lose ourselves to grief.
In the middle of the desert,
we are like a trembling bird
living by itself in wasted
places; like the night-bird
in a waste of sand.