Drink.

-“How are things?”

-“Things are...

things.

Things are things are things are

sand, a collection
of broken pieces

no longer solid
rock, glass, dead

inanimate

things felled,
écrase-d,
reduced
too small

enough to run through the cracks of her fingers when she tries to

pick him up.

-“I’m thirsty.”

-“How are things?”

-“In the desert,

water is a sign of a
source
somewhere somehow
someone’s?

one thing she knows better than others:

water is hope.

and when it hits her skin,
lapped by her tongue so quick,
for a second
she’ll question its existence.

Did I dream of mercy in this heat?

as she touches his fingers to the ground
their grooves

to which blond, brown, black granules of gratitude stick

hold eachother and his phalange tips

anticipating

More! More!
of our substance of relief–
no, more: of need.

“If your whole life is a desert look for the water.”*

Follow it to the river.
Drink
DEEP.

*L. Kim