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Albedo
- University of Pittsburgh Press
- Chapter
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91 Albedo for Elluage and Tom in the desert two men walk in opposite directions is this the Sahara one cries is this the Mojave the other blue fish jump in Lummi waters a creek in Tunisia backs up clear to the Dead Sea & mimics the moon’s shadow and all those years Paul Bowles stored in earthen jars slowly run in the sand’s hour glass like the imperceptible percentage of light reflected by the moon upon earth no breath no wind only a sad aria of a world gone nova two men walking in the desert one black one white both running out of directions is this where Nostradamus crossed? if east is east is west can what was done be undone in the blink of an eye? they keep time with borrowed patchouli sticks with turquoise and bits of shattered glass with breath gone emphysematous in crystal air the hardscrabble light of bad moons they ask: where were you when the world turned gunmetal gray? when poems grew obsolete with words parched as bones? they have seen men curse God as if He could hear them they have seen heaven’s last chariot cross a tattered sky 92 they have seen madness reduce a town to rubble and suffered no less from it than the dead their gaze fixed on the urban oasis shimmering like a mirage a bright idea flicked like a match head the light by coincidence falling far short of ground zero in the fire this time ...