He suffered under the burning sun,
without a shirt on his back, an empty canteen gripped in his hand,
a town appeared on the horizon, his eyes
must be playing a trick on him, crimson
blood came from his coughing lungs. The desert
would kill him soon, but he must escape it as he escaped his past.

He stumbled into the arid town with no memory of his past.
He collapsed at the feet of an old woman who immediately got him out of the sun
he awoke later, coughing dust from the desert
the elderly woman was examining the marks on his right hand
“The coloring of these marks are extraordinary, a dark crimson,”
she said, looking up into his waking eyes

She stood, startled, from her chair, eyes
wide, “Oh my! Never in my long past!”
For the boy’s irises were bright crimson.
Trying to make sense of the young man, she showed him the tattoo of the sun
that extravagantly decorated the palm of his hand.
“What do you remember from before you stumbled out of the desert?”

“I remember nothing of the desert,
when I look back at it, it’s like a blur before my eyes.”
The young man said, examining the tattooed hand,
“It is not a good sign, not knowing ones past,
It may be a sign of poisoning, or too much time in the sun.”
The old woman felt a rush whenever she made eye contact with his crimson.

The young man, still suffering, coughed up more blood, drenching a cloth in crimson.
Despite his obvious physical strength his time in the desert
had nearly done him in. No matter how strong, a mortal is no match for the sun.
He drank water, pitchers disappeared before the old maid’s eyes
but she never complained, for she had had a colorful past
and felt as if it was time to pay back her debts, and her means were at hand.

After a few days of healing the nameless young man kissed the back of her hand,
he was still rarely coughing blood and his lips left traces of crimson.
“I wish you luck in your search for your past,
many things are lost, and very few things are ever found out in the desert,”
She looked at him, committing his face to her failing memory, his eyes,
she was sure to remember. And so he walked away, following the sun.

A stranger with a sun tattooed to the palm of his hand,
A young man with startling eyes, bright crimson.
destined to roam the desert, searching for his past.