"Historical rubies of a rippling fire

have scorched across these floating sands

to finally cool within glistening sapphire

eyes of ancient promised lands.”

A dead (or dying) scavenger reads, rocking

in salutation; perched like a crib.  His children,

crow-faced, screech for milk and worms

from open, dust-clouded mouths.

He appreciates his audience

as they rise, timid, trembling, from the filth

like marionettes of mud: skeletal anecdotes

stolen from a memory.

And now they hang like phantoms

in the slowly tightening air, smiling

like serpents, suspended in silence.