she has the eyes of a writer

she has the eyes of a writer, a reader, an artist

            they bleed.

            they are open wounds,

            doorways into the cosmos—

speaking softly, she stamps each foot into the earth

the dust, it flies into her hair like a thousand malignant butterflies

over and over,

red, red.

forever I am condemned to bear atlas' weight of

(the sky, the ocean, and the souls carried along on dry desert roads)

for as long as I can see the horizon-

vermillion-

things happen,

I write about them,

I think.

at the fork, she doesn’t know which way to turn

(but she’s read about it before, if only she could remember the page)

too many words, too many—

such is the punishment

Of the intellectual.