Campbell McGrath

Phoenix

Like toys from a box, shaken out,
bright cars and alphabet blocks
strewn across the floor of the desert.

Like cargo dumped from a plane by accident,
things left out in the sun too long,
grown up planless, and desolate, and ordinary.

Was it the same for the Egyptians,
for the anchorite
crying out in the wilderness,

O Lord, I have passed through the fire
of this life and survived?
Like a blade of grass in your wind, o Lord?

Like a blind man seeking to decipher
with his hands your words
inscribed on tablets of salt amid the downpour.

Amulet of chalk and circuitry,
a city burning
faintly green against the god-bone.