for my part

I fear osiris

with his feather

rising to meet the raven in mid-air

 

they will turn to look at me

decide if I go

through the door of no return

into fierce landscape  

 

on my knees

I will crumple into the foetal position for prayer

 

in the desert

children crawl through sand to gather breakfast

eat radioactive manna from clawed hands

play with scorpions

 

exists a dream of the sought oasis

(oh how I want you green)

where cool morning mist marries honeysuckle

where the knee-deep grass

bends laden with night-dropped lethal hope

 

but my soul

pitched into the parched terror

will catch on skull antlers like barbed wire

blow in the glowing wind

   --first published in Amemone Sidecar, literary magazine of Ravenna Press