We clung to our dreams like ants to sugar.
In them we walked, we meandered uncertain,
we strained to remember
colors of the sea. Then in dream after dream
the homes of our mothers
and fathers crumbled.
They gave them away.
Like clowns, we writhed
and we screamed. Now we can never go back.
When we rise, we assemble the bones
we’ve collected. We toss orange after orange into the water,
watch them float.
We are a queenless colony, feeding on itself.
We recall the crowns
of sand dunes:
one side sewn exactly, pink lines inclined like lashes,
the other gouged out by our feet.
When we were in the desert,
it was difficult to find the end of things.
We dreamed we danced and bled,
and climbed skies for the goats we loved.
Here, someone
asks: is it like this every night?
But the night does not answer.