Murderous heights beckon
sad soldiers from the waste
of oil and prison.
To grasp the lives, the lines
of a history, badly told
she grips the rail:
Don’t look down.
Upwards sideways across
the span over the gulf
of time, an abyss, great
gaps of little glimpses
scrape the tiles of muck
snd scum from the neck
of a wine bottle like a
giraffe or howler.
Why stop and think the stop
sign is down the block a
ways and the bicycles never
let up, keep whirring past
fields of butterflies and
marshmallow flowers, fullness
of seed, ripe, not
rotten, with life or joy or
death as joy.
The rope taut now
the weight bears some
resemblance to the black
on her soul, crying for
the children of war and
the child of hatred
born into a lambswool
jacket at the bottom of
the hill at the edge of
the battle for the right
to the rest of this young
Boy’s Life: Sitting
thumbing old copies
of news and campfire
tips on broiling the day’s catch
from the river flowing between
them through the familiar
chasm that calls from below
her gripping the rail with
white-knuckled fist
fast, gleaming strides of
steel and heat. Sweat beads.
Bad dreams of salt
licks in a field of Queen
Anne’s lace and stones and
cows with wide eyes
lowing in the sun of this
alpen meadow.