From Which Mortar Cities Rise
The movie is about sand,
about the cool indifference that lies
at the heart of sand.
We lie on the sand
and watch the movie about sand
with our 3-D glasses on.
The movie goes on & on;
somehow we never get tired,
or sleepy, or bored,
or even sunburned, though
the sun is bright. It comes up,
then it goes down,
and then it comes up again
Sometimes we adjust our glasses,
or drink from a plastic jug.
At night, we expect
to see the moon—
the real moon, I mean, not
the moon in the film,
which is buried beneath the sand,
which is the sand’s cool heart.
Night without the moon
is hardly night at all.
It’s like a desert that has mistaken
itself for a plague.
It’s like an army
that has lost its library card.
The 3-D glasses
make everything look more real,
but not more interesting,
not necessarily.
And so we turn our attentions
back to the movie.
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About the Author
G.C. Waldrep, author of Archicembalo, teaches creative writing at Bucknell University.
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