I Am

I am streets, streets, endless streets

winding, knotting, tangling;

dust matted deep into cracks

of the roads, of the wrinkles of the faces

wearing smiles.

Greeting Traders.

I am of a foreign music, of a secret language

that rests precisely at the tip of their tongues.

I am a question forever.

Unaware, happily so.

At home.

I am tucked-in shirts, short-cut hair, well-trimmed souls.

A marriage between the calloused hands of Faith

strangling the sad face of Learning.

A faith misguided, misinterpreted, misused.

Unknowingly, happily so.

I am a sky like a big blue mouth devouring this desert,

and perhaps the desert does the same to me,

with mountains like crooked teeth,

shouting life into me that I might remember their bones.

For I can never go back.

Unwillingly, happily so.