The heat blew through my spine into my heart.
My back was to it, the sun.
I crouched, and pain came.
I stood, and there was none.

The wind is a dozen things.
Across my road, where the abandoned cars
Make a mansion-heap, poplars
Mimic tentacles, exactly 12, in the dusty air.

My desert is just beginning.
A little while from now, I will abandon my body,
And a few years after that, the Chinese

Will abandon Peking because of dust storms
Oranging their skies, choking their athletes.
God is the sun truly, you know, and He moves fast.

--Donald Revell