These days, I feel unground-
ed, wanting a long road
to distance me from air
that some might say Allah
exhaled for me to breathe
and suffocate from dust.
The yellow sheets of dust
hang heavy, brush the ground.
Some mornings I can’t breathe.
I pack up for the road:
a tent, a torch, all of
survival’s plan. Somewhere
I’ll find a place with air.
An hour’s drive past dust:
now I can see all of
the palms, the rocks, the ground
massaging asphalt road
with hands of sand. I breathe.
Behind wire, camels breathe,
thin nostrils squeezing air
down drainpipe necks, a road
to lungs designed for dust.
They huddle on the ground.
Their shepherd comes. Masha’allah,
I say. Nod. Insha’allah,
he says, their babies breathe.
In the shepherd’s background,
kandouras puff with air,
strung up away from dust –
their whiteness still erod-
ing, eaten by the road
and its exhales. Yalla,
his wrinkles also dust.
The camels rise and wreathe
the fence, the shirts of air
now drooping to the ground.
Yalla. Feet try to ground
the road. I suck in dust
that breathing turns to air.