Whirling Dervish

I realize it's two or three comparisons away

But somewhere in the background of the calmest of your days

A scrap of paper floats a thousand feet up in the air

Abandoned by some dust devil that died and left it there

The wind digs deep and peels up the skin of the land

The howling current erases the prints from my hand

I know you are a creature of soil and air

If one becomes too heavy the other simply escapes from there

When you unleash the sand and wind

I am suspended by your eyes

Squirming like a beetle pinned

Between the devil and the deep blue sky

The wind licks off the tarpaper with sandy cat tongues

Numberless horned bullets lodge in a lover's lungs

At last I see the ghosts which have been with me all along

Spinning on an axis pointed straight up at the sun

When the substance of our life together becomes too much

And you threaten to remove the whirlwind of your touch

I am only a piece of trash up a mile high

Grabbing at the falling sand which held me in the sky