$25.00
“To Eat the Desert Entire”
by Greg Fay
from "Commitment to Hang" – C90 cassette, magnetic sand-dust inside
I set out one dawn with a spoon made of blister,
To dine on the dunes,
To hush the wind’s whisper.
Forkless and faithless,
I chewed every grain—
The warmth of the quartz,
The shimmer of pain.
My stomach, a kiln.
My teeth, like regret.
Each swallow a pact
With a god I’d not met.
The mirage clapped once—
Aphids applauded.
Parthenogenetic applause.
No males nodded.
Insects born twice, or not born at all,
Sang lullabies spun
From a dust devil's call.
Bees buzzed from my mouth.
Ants hatched in my spine.
Wasp wings from my ears,
Still humming in time.
Commitment to hang
Is a hunger profound.
I married the sun
And devoured the ground.
Autumn came late with its sexual show—
But I birthed the horizon
Without needing a beau.
(Side B)
A single whisper, looped in sand-muffled hiss:
“The desert is full now.
It lives in my type of sex-determination system, the offspring's sex is determined by the number of sets of chromosomes an individual receives. This system is typical in bees and wasps”
Edition of one copy, unduplicated.