Whirling Dervish

I realize it's two or three comparisons away
But somewhere in the background of the calmest of your days
A scrap of paper floats a thousand feet up in the air
Abandoned by some dust devil that died and left it there

The wind digs deep and peels up the skin of the land
The howling current erases the prints from my hand
I know you are a creature of soil and air
If one becomes too heavy the other simply escapes from there

When you unleash the sand and wind
I am suspended by your eyes
Squirming like a beetle pinned
Between the devil and the deep blue sky

The wind licks off the tarpaper with sandy cat tongues
Numberless horned bullets lodge in a lover's lungs
At last I see the ghosts which have been with me all along
Spinning on an axis pointed straight up at the sun

When the substance of our life together becomes too much
And you threaten to remove the whirlwind of your touch
I am only a piece of trash up a mile high
Grabbing at the falling sand which held me in the sky