Deserted Campsite
By Brandon Marlon
– Brandon Marlon is a writer from Ottawa, Canada. He received his B.A. in Drama & English from the University of Toronto and his M.A. in English from the University of Victoria. His poetry was awarded the Harry Hoyt Lacey Prize in Poetry (Fall 2015), and his writing has been published in 200+ publications in 27 countries. Visit Brandon here.
By Allah! What species of darkness
was visited upon these hapless corpses,
desperate souls face-down in the sand
who tried in vain to outrun gales of wrath?
To the left, abandoned sheepskins;
to the right, putrid collops dangle above ashes.
Nearby, whinnying mares and braying jennets,
their eyes glazed and their moods disturbed,
bear witness to the sinister specter of jann.
The deceased go unsung, for they died as one;
only haunting threnodies borne by the wind
hum their names into the ledger of death.
Illustration by Sara Houmann Mortensen
