Blood sloshing
in my skull’s chipped saucer,
the stars trolling overhead,
and this dirt road
that twists back
to its own prehistory.
When I say you have the beauty
of a dirt road
I mean you have thin shoulders
that twist in me
like the fault lines
in a minor planet’s moon
I mean you smell of dust,
burnt soap stone, beetle shells,
garden hoses limp in the sun
I mean that I can feel you
tilt your head back
and tell some fleck of dust
hanging between us
that you make noises
only the dingo can hear.
I’ve lived all these years
with my mouth
pressed to the altar
of low green rivers
and slabs of shale
and I’m telling you now
that I can feel the night
scrawling the shape
of your voice onto the cold
wet earth of me
and when I say a doe
is about to jump
the low spot in the fence
in December in the rain
in this moment
and no other I mean
your animal stillness
resting next to mine.
from Poetry Northwest 11.2 Winter & Spring 2017More by Michael McGriff from the library
Copyright © Michael McGriff
Used with the permission of the author
on behalf of Poetry Northwest.