Underground Mountains

I've walked this line
through underground mountains--
set in a frame of rusting steel
because we all need
to define our beyonds.

It has hung here
longer than this wall
of smokey exhalation,
longer than these scratches
and shadows of language, longer than
the medicinal glisten of liquid
down the pin-wheel woman's arm.

From a bite of
a tiny mouth of
poison.

No wind turns the paper.
Other ways get work done.

The longing of a finger
for an itch.

I've found a way to become
unknown enough to lose my way
in these fading valleys of printed topography
hovering above accordian cries
and the textures of linen and hair.

With your shoulders the horizon
and your spine defining the ridge,
I pile stones on stones
and sweep,
the path clean.



by jerry gordon