Vault Under the Dunes

The desert keeps a library below its breathing sand, a cold throat of stone humming in the dark. We enter as if into a question, palms open, our footsteps soft as moth wings on glass.

Shelves of futures wait in silence— small sealed suns, each a map of rain. Labels curl like old leaves in a book that only the wind can read.

Above, the dunes are slow waves, braiding their bright backs to the horizon. Down here, frost beads on metal, and a single light stirs the air into music.

I hold one seed between gloved fingers— so light it could be a syllable. Outside, the world forgets and remembers, turning, turning, under a sky of minerals.