Years of Greyhound buses on gravel road turned
this village into moonscape, churned up
the dust, painted everything a thick coat of gray,
houses, trees, dogs, people,
a grayscale triptych, life-size and monochrome.
They shake their second skin off in the doorway
or carry it inside, let it form
a trail behind them, rinse it down the drain,
bale it out by the bucketful.

They breathe it out, sweat it in,
eat it down, cough it up. When the rainy season
comes it’ll turn into sludge, solidify in
the summer sun and stop them in their
tracks. Maybe they’ll turn up years from
now, excavated into the world and peck
out of their shells, ageless, world weary
and blinking.