Sahara

David Attenborough tells me

the Sahara is expanding. There

used to be giraffes and elephants.

Red paintings now. David thumbs

through a thesaurus, desolate:

bleak, empty, forsaken, lonely,

bare. But there is life. Spiders.

A snake. Ants on stilts.

They only come out at night.

Satellite pictures. David flips

to the back, vast: immense,

expansive, massive, endless.

Wind hisses over blank dunes.

Now David tells me about climate change.

The futility of action, drying up of hope,
play lullaby as I slip into an afternoon nap.