PARCHED

We sweat.
You say,
It’ll be fun to round the canyon
separately & wave at one another from
either side so we set off from touching to inches apart then
repelling onto divergent paths
You grow
smaller the further we go

Abhorring empty space, the driest wind blows
in like an airborne rag & sops
all moisture locked up in
bottomless clouds

Muffled moans from your matted
lips speaks for you under the painted
sky. The less you say, the more
I hear how deep the chasm goes

You stand a desert monolith-
the ledge on my side straining forth to
meet again the ledge on yours yet stretching
stones can never breach the gulf
fixed between, carved by rushing
waters

My echoed words ring out, ring
out to riddle the fog in the valley below where,
lost in distance, they fade.
Even with the hollow mile between you
read my thoughts if not my lips they
clinch tightly to your walking stick and
travel onward

My hope like tumbled boulders pierces the
membrane of cliff & air, plummets, plunges,
falls to the base of the gap exploding into
red-earth fragments to litter the canyon floor with
shrapnel prayers. Empty clouds descend to mingle with uprising
dust of clay eating you, your silhouette, devouring
the ghost of you obscured & swallowed whole

I thirst.
The last lonely drop from my little canteen burrows
into the tip of my tongue and I step-by-step
continue my trudge beneath the baking sun thinking
many thoughts which all end in the truth-
I’ll need more water soon