a dreamsicle melts across
the California sky & I think,
this path doesn’t lead back
to the car & the rattlesnake
we just stepped over reminds me
of Marvin Gaye’s father; the pistol
he used that night, Jamil says,
is the skull to Hamlet’s soliloquy
in the screenplay, he swears, God told
him to write. The pistol I never own
sits between me & my old man,
his ashes spread in the dream
where he never quits dying. Thirsty
doesn’t describe what we’re looking for,
yet for some it means desperate
for another’s touch. How did we forget
to bring water? He asks me
if I want to turn back & I think,
we can’t, we’re in our thirties,
we can only hallucinate that if
we were them, we would have done
better. We’re still children in this way,
believing that the path we’re on
won’t kill us too. As we walk,
I notice the brown edges of the sage,
its decadence choked by a historic
drought. I take some of its leaves
& rub them into my palm, trying
to revive its aroma, & I realize
the sun is not dying, but we are
turning away from its glow.