The Measure of Possession

The camel, who must bear his hump,
has no need for water
and will not request
what he does not want

but in the thick winds,
in the storm of night and sand
biting past fur and flesh,
he has neither shelter

nor recourse, so he may ask
for what comfort he might get,
and you, in your tightly woven tent
pitched taut against the desert's onslaught

amid the howl and shifting dunes,
the sky blanked of moon
or familiar figures of stars,
you will give in by degrees,

never admitting that you owe
this gradual good act
not to his persistence,
but to your own your thirsty guilt.