Desert Druid
by Kara Goughnour
Asking to be buried in the desert is like asking to see yourself rot before you die.
Come to where I lay, rattling veils of sand
on canvas camp chair, agate eyes dried open,
white and night-dark in their dull grayness.
Imagine living so long you see
things from your lifetime placed into a museum.
Imagine living so long
that people think you’re dead and buy your art.
In me are light years of late morning sun
layering, all neon and ochre encircling
in jagged pools of pigment.
Here is every picked bone of me,
laid out in a shallow grave.
Keep what you please;
bury an incisor deep
so I’m growing once again.
***
Kara Goughnour is a writer living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They are the author of Mixed Tapes, a part of the Ghost City Press Summer 2019 Micro-Chap Series. They are the recipient of the 2018 Gerald Stern Poetry Award, and have work published or forthcoming in The Bitchin’ Kitsch, Third Point Press, and over fifty others. Follow them on Twitter and Instagram @kara_goughnour or read their collected and exclusive works at karagoughnour.com.