He has trained himself to wither        She is sharp and subversive, a 
at the roots, to sit limb limp on       whisper, agent provocateuse, a mist of
limb, to show vague concern about       ambient pinpricks.  He, insensate,
the weather.  He is sometimes open      makes no meaningful response.  She
and sometimes closed, but it makes      tries for a time to meander with him,
little difference.  He broods, or       but he contains a desert inside his
does not; he whimpers, or does not;     desert.  The sands trickle within him
his emotional state is a broad, flat    as without.  She whirls a sandstorm
desert, with no landmarks, not even     about him, but his eyes are not stung;
the occasional cactus or half-buried    neither are they awakened.  She rolls
skull.  He gets lost in those sands,    a solitary tumbleweed across his
meandering.                             path.

                        cigarette flares.  I wish
                        you'd quit.  I know you do.
                        How's your head?  Dry and
                        infertile.  Let's fuck.  
                        Okay.  Well?  I need a
                        cigarette flares.  I wish
                        you'd quit.  I know you do.
                        How's your head?  Dry and
                        infertile.  Let's talk.
                        Okay.  Well?  I need a
                        cigarette
                              quit.  I
                                          Dry and
                                    Let's
                He's got a little       need
                pebble now, something      I wish
                that hasn't eroded.  When 
                she stands it's a simple thing,
                a plain-faced verticality.  He opens
                his hand and the pebble is just a pebble, o
                comfortable, comforting pebble.  When he drops

        (When he drops it it mars the bland perfection of the sand.
         The air that connects them is more message than musk, more
         medium than message.  She is run through by silver wires so
         thin she can't bleed, so sharp she can't feel.  He is prodded 
         by dull bluntness of memories; what memories?  Meander.)