Sahara-dark and dry-skinned girl:
birth of grease and brilliantine;
her mother a keeper of copious masks,
always toiling for the sublime.

Sahara-dark and blue glass girl:
profane wish for whiteness;
nostalgia for dreams eliminates distance,
the memory of steam and hunger,

the much-hunger of his haunches,
the saucy lozenge of his armpit;
the little roughneck saddles up
a psychology of faith and fear.

She is his archer and his emerald,
false spring and damp hammer,
breath of eden; abyssinia,
thing that tastes best at 3 a.m.,

ruptured bug-eyed and barely breathing,
kneading with her sweat and sighs
the sleep preceding death,
the rising of the dog star.

Sahara-dark and gelded girl:
gesture fallen from a caravan;
a heart that is cracked across
breath after breath of sahara,
dark and dry-skinned,
blue glass girl.