The Noon-day Ghost

The heat is a heavy glass, pressed against the red earth where the lizards have stopped breathing, pinned by the vertical sun.

No wind dares to comb the sage, nor stir the dust of ancient rivers; only the shimmer of the horizon speaks of water that was never there.

Time is a stone without a shadow, calcined and white as a rib bone, waiting for the slow lean of the world to grant the sand its dark relief.