Poem: Dust

 

Dust

 

an outcast had no choice

save to wander, a shroud,

and pitch a powder

that robbed skin of its vim 

and tarnished the rest,

a slow emaciation of luster.

 

it was a granular affair, this,

a sandglass sort of compulsion--

to conjure a feast 

and fete outlandish vultures

while banqueting a menagerie 

of worms. 

 

the outcast built mansions wherever,

from Sahara to Marianas Trench,

and even founded outposts that lurked in lungs:

of lovers, of criminals of relatives and ants

and despots and clowns and masqueraders and sheep

and even in the hallowed ecclesiastic receptacles   

which tickled the nostrils of saints.

 

it made sense, perhaps, that the outcast

was maligned as infernal, 

even as life strived and bred and waxed and 

suffered and collapsed around the pules

of the latest incipient infant-wave.

 

perhaps there was something 

of a connoiseur in the outcast, after all:

which future, which hope, which thrill, 

which sinful succulent-dessicant nature 

would dissolve sweetest

in the latté dunes of time?

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10/13/24 eds