in each hand a disparate dream: in all dreams
another far
too quiet: delirium
of the mask and God behind it: paradise
had no winter like
this: this
is the one where the infant sleeps in the dirt
the sleep
of a dreamless mind so far from home
he no longer resembles anyone:
his mother, thrown
down, hunted, sick
with fear, sleeps next to him among the filth of animals: his father
watches (the imperative
that love
—not solace—
demands), for there is no room for another
sleeper: the desert will keep
bringing its mirage,
no doubt:
the child will walk in his shimmering garden, says
the wilderness, if you just get across:
motes in the light rise and rest:
sole face left (remember you are dust)
of our first lost image:
Copyright © 2019 by Gina Franco. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 3, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.