Ripped bandages comfort the man,

dusty sand whips at his skin,
fragile like a butterfly’s wings;

his sunken face is pale peach
with scruffy chocolate bristles;
skeletal bones like twigs
ready to snap from a branch.

The stranger has no one in the 

world to go to
not even the slightest shadow to
guide him under the looming

dark, starry sky. His long expedition will be
secret, undocumented;
like the slaves escaping plantations.

One vulture circles the thinning man,
unknown and alone; he will
wander until the vulture decides to

swoop down; both wanderers
screaming between agonizing sobs,
their bodies will decay before
a new wanderer can find them.

They were the lost nomads.