The white of the world etched
on a blackboard, moths hidden
on the bark of oak trees, filaments

of their lives in exile, it seems
there would always be dusty rivers
in my life, leading off to golden

places, these palaces lit with blue
light if insect zappers, a zzz-zzz
of electricity in the night, a key

in a mummy's eye, pale white
of archeologically-dug bone,
 a femur, a tibia, a linked spine

coiled in the red dirt of Egypt-
I once knew a boy named Fermin
who ate chalk when the teacher

wasn't looking.  He nibbled at it
like a rabbit, then smiled, opened
his mouth, the back of his throat

riddled with crunched, white
residue-"comida," he called it,
this hunger of white chalk, how

the world fills us with desire.