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.