Between the women palms are face up, dangling off brown
arms. Sweat would cool them if it could, but air here is
greedy. Air snaps up that sweat.

At dawn shallow tracks of beetles and lizards, flies and
lions threw shadow. Shadow paths tricked sand surface into
maps forty miles wide and undulating on waves of silica
particles, obsidian particles. The height of life stood
within four millimeters of the thin plane of earth surface.
The wide arc of a dune, the steep face to wind’s lee
appeared as high drama at dawn. Sun hurried up the sky,
climbing high in order to flatten out those dunes. And wind
shaved displaced particles of sand, plowed them off, shoved
them into hollows to erase track maps.

Lizards are burrowed in, cool, breathing through sand. Cats
and snakes are undercover. Flies hover in spare shade,
humming, humming. The women sit still, listening. They
wait, hot and with dry skin taut, too quiet to talk.