Dust - three poems

Dust
Brown dust
beating
a prickly pear pattern
on bare skin.
Dry dust
blowing deep into
the core of breath,
killing slowly,
drowning from the
inside out.
The ashes within
united to the dust
without.
The bare brown earth
cries for rain.

***

Dust Storm

The land rises,

rushing down the mountain,

eager to renew the connection

between dust and flesh.

It is a reminder of

water, so necessary

to anything hoping

to survive.

The land cries

for water, and the skin of my arms

responds, cracking and

flaking away in showers

of white dust

even as my lungs

draw in a prayer

for rain.

***

Dust Summer
Dust,
        blown on a wind as cold as the inside of a dry well.
Dust,
        brown as the crumbling adobe walls of the houses lining the streets around them.
Dust,
        dry as last year's weeds, summer-sun-baked in the front yard and stinging sharp on bare legs.
Dust,
        sharp as the goat heads lying hidden in the dead grass, just waiting for a shoeless foot to step down
        suddenly, painfully.
Dust