the small explosion did it, skyward
you tumbled too. chapped limbs
smacking sunrays good
morning.
shoulders of honeycrisp apples, the
bitten lip and hives. neither
of us do well with mountains or tumors: tenacity usually
reserved for philosophizing, not this sanitized endurance.
two months later, skill will swaddle its skirt of early fortune
and we will be grooming the slopes, grooming the children,
grooming the sick back to brightness
& she’ll dash like light to a Tuscan sun.
we just can’t see the neck of the mountain
from here.
the sun licks our face and says:
it is lonely at the top, and this is my excuse to
shut the eyes and clip my wings.
i shudder and you drink my misgivings
and are not yet sick.
you, sturdy as bone, graze my
courage and dare to scrape my
brain, fat with fruit pulp and hype.
i lay you on your side
and scrape my voice down your throat
and unbutton my spine for you
and offer everything in me as sorry
and you never get sick.
crying
in that cavity above my lungs, what
do I flee when I dive into phonemes?
this