Chott

Through the tent flap, across the air mattress, up over my shoulder blade, 
The blindfold of sunlight slips into place. On your borrowed Walkman

The muezzin’s morning call to prayer clears its throat, of unbelief. 
Already out there pillars of sand are forming m hold up the sky

For minutes at a time before they buckle and collapse with exhaustion. 
One more day on the salt flats. Air tight as a water-skin. Black flies

On your eyelid. Sun. Two suns, the counterfeit sun curling like a petal,
Separating from the true, wrenched from it to simmer on its reflection,

A hands breadth between them now, the true one hauled up dripping. 
Whose idea was a week on a dead sea anyway? A week away from the port,