a lone bird sits on the crumpling wall

of mother’s heart. its beak bears

tidings from her lost son – telling

her that Libyan desert follows

the scripture & fills

the living with dust, that the desert

has those highways which only worms

can tour & bus terminus that terminates

under cactuses. a worm bears the names

of many sons whom it invests. those names

float in distant air with broken tales &

aborted ancestries. her son melting like

Icarus wings, his brain playing mancala

with the desert stones. Every waterhole

has a poisonous adler. to drink is to die

to die is to become vapour of broken skin

& loathsome name, floating in distant lake

of smoke: soon to become next immigrant’s

daymare & his mother’s nightmare.