Three Poems

l.
This is the only place that I inhabit:
The desert.
No drop of water: no palm-trees: nothing.
No gourd, no cactus: sand
Heaped on all sides like mountainous seas
To drown in
Luckily I cannot see myself, I am alone
No mirror, glass, plastic left by an Arab
Nothing
I cannot say it too often
Nothing
The sand itself would diminish if I said yes
No rascally Bedouin
Praying mantis, or nice people
A mirage of them, occasionally
But they are not there, any more than I,
...