The jaybird whispers a melody. My heart answers with pompadour from nostalgia, a fan to air out the mirage of a screeched record. I have endlessly dodged a freight practice from the trumpeting devildust. I beseech it: What was stolen by time? What oasis could drown my cracked lips, fidgety with tambour of Greece? I research. A fanaticism readies to pounce on me— a desert blowing rain with dreadful raspberry kisses. Dear old camel watches nonchalantly, its hooves sinking a mile deep. Like a tie around the neck, it decrees: “Abandon me not.” To that, I roar: “Cage me not.” The melody dulls to a cicadas’ choir practice. The visitor— the jaybird—has left, leaving behind an angry wound of bygone echoes.