A mirage you can almost taste
from where you’re knelt—except this thirst
is not for water, but a cold
and virtually translucent blood.

Translucent as the air—that’s how
you squint across the waste and know
the haze is not some hollow effect
but shimmering, potential fact.

And it’s a fact you’re in possession
already of this granular essence—
the vista is a doctor’s screen
on which the future can be seen

within you. And so you rise and step
towards what leads you by the tip
of the tongue, although the changeless light
has aged your eyes. Is it too late?

But then the taste is real somehow;
you come to your senses mouth-to-mouth
with your ideal, and with their hand
they brush your cheek of sweat and sand

and at the moment when they seem
about to speak your inmost name,
you close your eyes again—and pull
away.  They are too beautiful.