Heal
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
—Hal David
thinking of
the week
previous,
the man’s
travels had
taken him
nearly through
the heart of
the desert,
where he
witnessed
a seemingly
miles-long
line of leathery
inchworms
making its
way through
the endless
dunes. today,
trying to keep
it all together,
he places his
small square
of cloth over
a few of the
stalks in the
giant wheat
field that he
has allowed
to envelop
him, reaches
into his back
pack, takes
out a small
tub of food,
mulligatawny
soup, in this
case. he sips
without a
utensil until
the tub is
empty. too
much turmeric,
he thinks. he is
contemplating
life’s paradoxes,
like how this wheat
grows in this hyper
bolic heat. how just
last night he drank
the nectar of a pair
of peaches that he’d
found in a shaded
dell. his travels
have not exactly
been random,
much as it might
appear, even in
his delusions,
the red flags
that appear all
too often of late.
he knows the sun
is setting too slowly,
but the delusions have
made him drowsy. he
removes the pipe from
his bag, realizing briefly
the irony of the notion of
quelling his delusions by
smoking from the few
remaining embers of
tangerine dream.
he places himself
squarely within the
milk way in hopes of,
more irony, settling his
senses, becoming a bit
more grounded, as sleep
inevitably comes. he
dreams of the cliff-
dwellers with whom
he spent weeks earlier,
was it really the winter?
seasons are such useless
bits of nostalgia, he thinks
he sings as a slips into a
dream in which he is in
a vast and scorching
emptiness, wearing
tattered clothing,
dripping in sweat,
and having nothing
else in his possession
but a wishbone, which
turns out to be only
representative as he
tries to break it, as if
only the good luck might
prevail over the hand
that holds that shorter
end. It won’t break.
He’s worked himself
into a sweat trying to
pull the bone apart
before realizing that
it’s a sculpture, an
artist’s rendition,
perhaps of sculpture.
When he awakens,
finally, in the heat
of the night, in the
middle of the field
of wheat standing
still for lack of any
breeze with which
the tall stalks can
commingle, he
has in his hand
the wishbone
sculpture. he
will never know
this, but it is
sculpted entirely
from stone
that had
been stolen
