Two things

and later, when the worst has healed and you find
yourself back on the desert trail, you will know two

things instantly: 1. the shifting, sinking, whispering
sand will outlive you, absorb you and 2. with the

sky too wide and the stars too many and the land
too vast, in the sand that holds and drowns and

forgives, you will fall to your knees and no matter how
small you felt that one night, drinking spurious rum

from bootlegged bottles when everything was locked
down and no one came or cared or could, no matter

how little was left of you the next morning, you will
know you are less. And then you will rise and smile,

sadly, because a virus, even smaller, with no hands or
heart, had for a while, taken down an entire planet.

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