Look at this cracked earth
like the lines in my father’s skin.
Sitting in the sky,
the sun feels bitter,
blazing and flaming so close,
grieving and grasping, she drinks

at my lips, pulling the cool drink
of water from my mouth, from the earth,
and trying to close
the clouds away, peeling their skins
off, pushing them from the sky,
sending them away from the bitter

brown of bare trees, banished into bitter
tears, acidic and unsatisfying to drink,
falling from the empty skies.
Once I took colors from the earth
and tattooed my skin,
but now they have faded and are close

to being gone, reminders of how close
I once was to life and fertility, not these bitter
and dying skins
of trees, longing for clean water to drink,
feeling with the earth
and looking to the sky.

The jealous sun is up in the sky,
doing all she can to crack and close
up my throat, filling it with earth
and with the bitter
herbs that make me vomit without drink.
She burns my skin

and eats my flesh, peeling the skins
off my eyes and off my fingernails. Her hot sky
has taken all of the drink
and has closed
the throats of the animals, turning them bitter
towards the earth.

The sky tastes bitter
and has fallen close to the earth,
and the sun still drinks from my skin.