Perhaps the desert is too wide.
He has dug himself a grave
lies where the sand is faintly moist
and the dune slowly rolls hum under.
In this absence his tent is more material:
it echoes like a church.
Has someone left; is another still to come?
Sands shift, and the embossed chest
slides and spills towards the edge.
Hard and shiny things dribble out
onto the staring corpse.
Horse and dog slump about,
hip to shoulder and back again:
listless, divided beasts
beginning their own dispersals.
The camels shuck their packs,
make slits of their eyes and nostrils
and round up to the wind.