Tilted, the landscape becomes an aged face

biting the bruised peach sky.

This desert is all teeth: cancrum oris over wrinkles

of sand, limestone grimace—

or snarl? Children pick

between her canines, sticking

in cracks like fruit pulp. 
Tourists cling to her gums, climb mouthward and throw up

the peace sign. Wide grin, camera flash.

I burrow into warm pores, make holes

& bury trinkets: mood ring,

toy car, tiny plastic

Southern Cross. 
                                        Under the sand: limestone, calcrete.

                                        Under the sand: root tissue, silt, a pulse.
In school I’ve seen her captured, laid out

on a page & defanged, stripped of jawbone. But here in the heat of it

there is a fear, the wild notion

that I might be swallowed.
From the picnic table I watch shadows

flood her hard palate. Her great

& ancient tongue unrolling.
                                        What does the desert eat? I push
my plate away and everybody laughs.

But I can see her behind them,

straining to lick clouds from the lychee moon.