EXPECTATION

Take me on a station wagon ride
through a dry-throated desert,
where hubcaps are hung as skulls,
laundry flutters and is not folded.
Lay me to rest there,
so I can watch my angular shadow
short itself out like a faulty circuit.

From a back window comes a sentimental song
no one believed in, even when it was written.
Kids play games with dust and broken furniture.
I was once one of them.
I learned that thirst was nothing
but the absence of expectation.
I let the aimless wind flip
text book pages, past illustrations
of steam boats, skeletons.
I stayed very still and listened
to my bones stretch beneath skin.

Now, I fry eggs, straighten bookshelves,
wait for death.
When I hear thunder,
it's never really thunder.

Lay me down in this desert,
in its cracked black riverbeds.
Let me use my fingers, dig.
Let me know what it is to raise
water to my lips, drink.