I shed my habits way back
Many dunes ago,
Keeping just my bow, my quiver of three,
The only traces in the uniformity of sand those of my sinking feet
And the bow’s dragging line.
Nothing nowhere,
Just huge waves of sand frozen into shimmering immobility
Their crests sculptured to perfect smoothness by wind
And gravitation
And desert’s momentary breathlessness.
No vultures. No thorns.
Just sun.
Burning.
I stopped,
Hesitation over, mind over,
Only thirst, overpowering.
I fit an arrow to the cord
Stretched it way beyond my shoulder
Took aim, steady, unflinching,
Cursed
And let go.
Waiting
Till the arrow pierced the sun’s heart,
Its painful tear a lump of fire the size of a continent shooting into space
Its scream sizzling away together with the fire’s primeval surge
In the absolute cold of our separating lives.
I pulled the second arrow from the quiver
My arm steady, my mind clear, empty,
I heard a gasp behind me,
I released the taut cord
And the second arrow sunk next to the first
The scream unbearable, inhuman,
The pain of flames carried by long forking tongues licking stars into oblivion
Cracks deepening into the crawling red skin
Leaving me impassive, mindless.
I picked my third arrow,
The last one,
Death at its sharp end
The final blow.
“Stop, please...” was the whisper
And my muscles petrified
My aim perfect
As the bleeding sun neared the line separating horizon from void
Too wounded too slow
Its dying rivers soaking deep purple
And bright red into the desert’s sea.
She floated in front of me
Hovering between my aim and my arrow’s tip
Obstructing my view,
Unleashing my anger.
“...or you’ll have to rip through me.”
Where were her eyes?
“Who are you?” I asked,
My fingers buzzing under the tremendous cord pull.
“I am Fata Morgana.”
“An illusion...”
“To those who don’t believe...”
“Millions of them, looking for you,
Dying at your doorstep,
Never finding you
Only your shadow
Because you do not exist.”
“Because they do not believe...” she insisted softly,
“You found me, the first.
You believed.”
“No, it is my thirst, my madness, you are still an illusion...”
“Then let your arrow go,
Let it pass through me,
You will see.”
I was going to, my little finger deserted the cord...
“You pierced the sun’s heart... do you know of else who did it?...”
My next finger deserted the cord...
Then my muscles slowly relaxed,
The bow untensed,
My mouth a grimace of pain and unending thirst.
“I found what?” I asked.
“I believe in what?”
“In love...” she sang,
Picking my arrow and putting it back into the quiver.
The sun froze, half of it safely hidden behind the world,
Half still vulnerably exposed to my wrath,
If wrath there will be.
“The sun does not go down,” I said.
“True, if I am not your wish, you can use your third arrow,
I will not stop you anymore,
The world can die.”
“Are you love?”
Her outline was sparkling with millions of reflections
Her color pale yellow, uniform,
The shape of eyes, the shape of lips, the breasts, the toes...
“Are you love?” I repeated.
“You did not decide yet.”
“Are you woman?” I added.
“You did not decide yet.”
“Is there a good end or a bad end to this poem, or story?...”
“You did not decide yet, you are still thinking...”
“What is this,
Some cheap unreleased version de Saint Exupéry may have written
In one of his latest of delusional moments?”
“I don't know, you are still writing it,” she said.
“Why did you protect the sun?” I asked,
Trying to ward off the assailing glints from her body,
“I am thirsty.”
“You are thirsty for fire,
For the sun, for love, for me, for my fire...”
“Who are you?”
“I am Fata Morgana,
The sun is my creator, my creation, my self,
My poetry,
My love,
Waiting for your love and thirst... or death...”
She sunk her hand into her chest,
Opening a well at the bottom of which a huge fire ball was raging.
“What is that, another sun?”
“No, it is the same sun, can't you see it is bleeding?” she answered
“Same like the one in your chest...” she added
Opening a passage between my ribs... a double trail of blood visible,
The fire inside me pouring lambent upon my skin...
“Do you want to love me?”
“Do I have the choice?”
“You do, I waited all these thousands of years, it is never too late to die...”
“You are made sand...” I objected weakly
As the fire pouring out licked the end of my fingers
And I started touching her outer shell,
Tiny layers of finest sand peeling off at my touch and falling to our feet
In the breezeless air.
“Why is love made of fire enclosed inside a body of sand?
I may crush you so easily
Even in a spasm of love
And then your fire will soak into sand and die...”
She touched the arrow's tip
A tiny red point at the end of her long thin sand finger
Showing where she touched it.
“You can still shoot the sun through me
And end our wait,
Or you can love me ever so tenderly... like loving a woman made of sand...”
We made love,
Her invisible eyes tearing dew, soaking right into her cheeks,
My teeth crunching the fine powdery silica of her lips
My hands avoiding the yellow stains of her nipples
Aghast at the fear of crushing them into powder.
“Use your fire...” she whispered before her torn insides accepted my offering
And as I allowed my flames cover her body
Pour into her well
Our inner suns merging
The heat unbearable, erupting,
Her outer layer crystalized
The sand flowing out of her new shell
And she turned as brittle as thin as fragile as soap bubbles made of glass.
“Are you scared?” she asked, scared,
“I did not know I will turn glass,
I thought...
Now I am transparent, breakable, you can see the fire in me
But dare you still make love to me?...”
“I am scared,” I answered, scared,
“I dare not make love to you,
Loving you is breaking you...”
"Not loving me is breaking me,” she said, handing me the arrow,
Her crystal fingers tinkling like frozen drops of dew
Rolling on a thin silver staircase on their way to a bottomless abyss,
“You may as well kill my sun... my poetry...”
“...my poetry... my love...”
“...our love... our sun...”
“...us... I am about to write an end to this poem... story...”
“Is it a good end?”
“I do not know, I did not write it yet.”
We made love,
Forgetting I was making love to a woman of thinnest glass,
Unable to see her eyes glinting,
Her lips opening,
The resilient softness of her breast almost exploding as I tasted it
Her legs encircling my hips one step away from annihilation.
“Use your fire...” she whispered before her brittle insides accepted my offering
And as I allowed my flames cover her body
Pour into her well
Our inner suns merging
The heat unbearable, erupting,
The glass melted away,
The flowing flames chilled into flesh
She turned woman.
“You believed in me to the end...” she said.
“I believed in love to the end...” I said.
“You believed in me to the end...” she said.
“True...” I said.
“I was eternal, now I am woman.”
“You were illusion, now you are woman.”
I locked the door to her fire with half of my heart.
She locked the door to my fire with half of her heart.
“The sun is now free, we have our own sun now.
May I let it go back to its own world?”
I picked the third arrow, broke it in two and buried it into the sand.
Then broke the bow in two and buried it next to the arrow.
“You are love,” I said.
“We are love,” she said, throwing one tear into the awaiting half hell.
The sun started sinking.
“Is it a good end?” I asked, ready with the final dot.
“It is poetry, it is tenderness, it is fire...
It is love,” she answered, adding after a slight hesitation,
“It is not an end.”
I allowed her flesh to kiss me, my thirst forever unquenched,
The desert forever blooming...
I let the final dot fall after the last word.
