If we could count all the worlds
of faces veiled
in once-soft, long since stretched,
withered sun-worn skins,
strained by the pain
of flesh from flesh torn away
and taken,
vanishing distant, down,
underground,
We would find beyond all reckoning
the rounded drops that weep
from eyes open watching wounds,
watching wanting all,
drops of flood falling
and rising into vapor
out of hollowed hard earth's cracked thirst.
