Their Dusty Day

The two, ingrown
from time and proximity,
each a habit unthought,
a cog in the other’s wheel,
that trundles from dusty day
to sweaty grunting nights
of incidental contact.

Each lost in the distance of
rubbing skin,
separate in their ceremony of
flesh, nerve and skin
tingle and live on their
own, as their inner crouching
watcher remains removed
from warmth.

Despairing the rumble
of wheels and roads,
knowing the scheduled
destination, each longing
in their tiny dank cave,
praying for the hook of fate
to rake across either of them,
and pluck them from their fugue,
to storm their days and rattle the aching throb
of their ingrown desperation;
imagining earthquakes and tornadoes,
disasters of open sky or lightning
to crack or loosen the tight strangling
ligature of the other.

Dreaming of an alien passion
and longing to awake renewed;
but no storm comes,
no lightning flares,
the sky remains bland,
morning arrives again
and they trundle
into their dusty day.