Losing Self

Saffron dunes
commandeer memory.
They sand-blast thoughts,
settle in the crevices of
wrinkled recollections,
winnow I's out of heads
and finally:
sleep purple underneath
the dappled, silver moon whiteness
of usurped skulls.
They weigh there,
muffling bodies' activites.
Now:
Hearts thrum with Gregorian chants
rather than beat with percussive rhythm;
Stomach-rises lengthen from a quarter-inch
per breath to a full inch -
Lungs hoard oxygen
like cacti savoring and safekeeping water;
Femurs hollow, transforming walking into
floating with a gritty chain at the ankle;
Armpits tingle - goosebumping what hair
is there,
and finally:
Necks ache under the weight
of the cerebral desert.
Inside the head, miniature ecosystems
begin and end.
Small organisms - independent of the I's
that used to inhabit their habitats -
multiply by dividing and, along with
the cold, skull-lit sand,
consume old brains.
Old vertebrae tremble
under the load.
Spinal columns threaten
brittle pelvic bones so --
Scarab beetles scuttle
to save the struggling spines,
daubing too-flexible discs
with dung and juice to make
straight, strong, immovable spines
that necessitate continual laying.
The dunes gather,
giving head colds.
Noses run, gold sand pouring out of
each nostril, dirtying handkerchiefs.
Throats grate, rasping with aridity,
choked with the dichotomy of
blistering days and frigid nights,
rubbed raw and then
coated with the healing of scar tissue
until throats thicken,
assaulted by always-there air,
and only able to swallow whistlefuls.
Sand-snots continue to flow -
an incessant burying -
and throats solidify:
I's are gone and the desert
conceals them with its
conforming convexity, its
endless, sameness of hills
under which lie numberless
I's which used to be;
mummified selves
dry, sable, burned by stifling heat,
hidden and drained --
future enigmas for anthropologists.