Rain
shrugged off ancient wooded flanks
regroups
settles into the nearest crevice
rushes
to find more of itself.
The mountain knits
around this rolling purl
a guiding web
shows the assembled rain
the way down.
If I stepped into
this shining stream
touched
my belly to
its belly
I might dissolve
undone by cold rock and
the persistence of water.
The net of my body
would open.
These round stones would
pass right through.
My bones unlaced,
skin and everything else
bare to the sun.
Milk-thin light tracing
tributaries of vein and nerve
cleaves tissue and breath
rimming every cell
with a tiny aurora.
When my body is old
as the mountain is old,
steeped and worn
skull ripple-smooth
you will find me grinning
teeth like pebbles
tongue washed away
with a
mouth full of silt,
mouthful of song.
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This poem was selected as a finalist in the 2011 Mountain Xpress Poetry Prize.
