she is thirsting

I will be baked into the earth,
my skin evaporated in the air around me
for the ghosts of the birds to drink. 
Those whose bones lie scattered across the ashy ground, 
those who ruled the blue above, and kissed the green below for pleasure. 
Now, caked in dust, they are slaves to Death. 
Their bones might still drink
what little is left of my thick blood,
once my bleached skin and stringy tendons have peeled away in the scorching wind. 
The driving, dry wind, ceaseless now that the sea is gone,
and none is left to ease its mind.
It whips across the face of the woman I once loved,
cracking her once lovely skin and leaving her barren. Useless.
The woman I once loved,
now withered and grey and
thirsting.
I see it in her faded smile, once bright and gay,

in her eyes, glistening no longer, 
in her foul breath and feeble walk,
in her sagging chest and blistered lips.

She tastes burnt and brittle.
This is the way I must leave her. Forgotten and used.

I walk until the last breath of life has been parched from me,
and crashing to the ground I cradle her in my lifeless arms.
The sun beats upon her breast and mine;
I melt into her once more, forever.