Water's Test

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink;
that was my dilemma once—no water.  I think
that I shall never see the days of dryness, those
times of parched throat and swollen tongue woes
hitting me hard, like I was the hot Sahara sand,
my brain a kiln looking for cool breezes, my hand
wrinkling like the skin of prune, like winter cracks
the heel making unsightly grooves.  It all smacks
of water starvation, as if Mars came by with its
Antarctic environment to torture.  It was the pits
I tell you, when even bones begged and pleaded
for a single solitary droplet—’twas water needed,
a modicum of throat and gullet sustenance, of
something made of elements abundant, that love
which when consumed satisfies and invigorates;
all the water then was ocean, that salty grates
poison-like, spawning madness, tempting yet
off limits—oh I needed water, I was not wet
inside, but a furnace sucking needed cooling
of every cell, of the natural man…no fooling,
this was water envy, a veritable lustful want,
an eternity of scorch and dust, of brittle font
on a page of life afloat forever on briny sea,
when the lack of drinking water tested me.

24 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
1-20-18