I Call Upon These Thirsty Demons Poem by Mark Heathcote

Now I know who they are
And they know who we are too
I call upon these thirsty demons
They don't live very far
They don't work for NASA
But neither does they live-very-far
Just a few light-years from where we are.

There's this drought — famine
Starvation in the hub of my heart
In the interior of their conscience
That mirrors a folding star.
Limitless deserts lick
At its crescent emptied space.

Don't ask me to dance with you
Don't ask me to swim with you.
You, acrid evil fools
Don't ask me to look into
Your two olive stone pitted eyes. "Reflect."

There's no water in either eye.
Neither pool bleeds nor fills —
There are no Elysian Fields in these cold-dry hills
In our hearts, in our minds, in our breast
Only, Martian salt-crusts sweep before us in easy rest:
... Is what's left of our long-departed souls?