I come and go now.
When the mood strikes.
Hands still function and
teeth no longer chatter.
I'm under
perfect trance
of the art of
sitting very
quietly.

Sage still blows.
Flesh is still uninfluencable
spectacles of desert.
Time quickly flows as before.
Nothing is changing.
No thing is perpetuated.

But when the trance envelopes
sometimes I see a glimpse
of the tumbling dead sage
you once named in another place.
And when the desert blows cold
and your brush rolls closer,
I can feel your slow
steady breath
against the back of my neck
restain the teeth scars
from gold to drab-green.

I close my eyes
as the desert's warm kiss fades
and through the sweet smell
of blooming sage
breath my distended
perpetual
sigh.