The desert people are gaunt
with gnarled joints,
cheekbones like flint,
and eyes that glitter from dark recesses;

they move loose and disjointed
like Rocinante
clomping
over hard baked caliche,

peering like yellow-eyed birds
into the sun,
heads tilted with half-formed questions,

moving forward
through the shimmering air.

Their pursed lips,
fissured,
white and alkali,
shape no sounds
- part only for slack-jawed exhalations.

With skin burnt brown
and crackling
(like suckling pigs)

they trudge ever onward,

burning through themselves
like cord wood

into the blast furnace of the searing sun.