Perks of Desolation

PEDRO TEJADA

I wish I could drive a fossilized Cadillac

right through an arid desert

in the middle of Arizona

so my desolation can have its own landscape.

I’ll ask the grains of sand

rocketing in swirls around the wind

if it’s seen my talent running by;

I’ve been calling it for months now.

The citizens of Earth are not cold.

It was just my eyes that gave them frostbite,

my mind that morphed their faces

to resemble the hideous change within.

I’m not sure if that’s a truth

that fate has put on layaway since birth,

or perhaps a rumor that’s been force fed

like wart-ridden frogs to the purest of tongues.

All I want at this point

is to be a center of a desert’s mushroom cloud,

leaving with a new look at the sky

and a bit of dry skin.