Michael Minassian: DESERT SONG

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DESERT SONG read by the author, Michael Minassian.

I

As I rub my eyes with cracked hands,
objects appear to waver,
dissolving like a mirage
along hot, dusty roads;
we turn the windshield wipers on,
next the headlights;
sand seeps in through the cracks
around windows and doors.
The car stops, its parts
clogged with sand.


The wind blows and blows;
the desert loves itself;
it moves, it changes,
it kills for more.

There is too much dust in the air;
sand spills from the mouth, the nose;
motes the size of boulders
clog the sight.

This is what comes of looking too far.
I yearn to see Ararat,
but stuck here a thousand
nights away, I swim in the desert
like a star lost upon the milky way.












II

Ararat,
I burn for you.

Ararat,
I slit my wrists
for you: out comes sand.

Ararat,
I kiss your breast
shaped peaks;
the nipples I thought
were cool white snow
are sand.

Ararat,
I cry for you;
these tears a mirage,
this smile a scimitar,
this ride a trip back
through deserts of time.


Copyright Michael Minassian

THIS POEM FIRST APPEARED IN ARARAT MAGAZINE IN WINTER-1990; it is reprinted here by kind permission of the author.