Desert

A drifter in a old jacket found

between the coiled limbs of trees,

fingers used to the rolled leaves, sending

smokey petals in the parchment-coloured night.

Every exhalation is dust on the past;

sometimes he thinks that memories sleep

like envelopes inside a drawer left tightly shut.

Innocence is distant when lost

and the dust settles on what was once familiar,

every particle resembling the passage of time,

until he realises the drawer cannot be opened,

the dust has settled 
and gathers inside his chest.