SCAPES
You were dreaming sleek gray horses
over a glacier-scape of green pools gouged
from granite, your knees
rooted into dappled ribcage, a winged
escape. But
waking to daylight, you walked
on your own two legs to find
a force of earthworms
turning topsoil out of everything
you tossed away before you went to sleep.
See, down here
the worms are making
their own arrangements
invisible and blind
in your bed.
THROWN
When you were three, you fell off a gentle
summer-camp pony named Papoose. You learned
to get back on, so as not to be afraid
for life. You fell in love with spotted ponies
and have fallen off several others since.
Here’s a picture of you sitting on an angled
block of concrete somewhere in Western Europe.
Without speaking the language, you felt the solid
world quiver with rumors of old wordless war.
When you got lost in desert in the spring,
the cactus put on flowers, the cabezas
cantered and the tall sky clapped.
In the year of the seismic rodeo that broke
the bones of just about every building
in the city, you walked on tarmac
that could not stop twitching,
In this new year, having ridden and fallen
and got back up, you lay your face
against a slackened neck,
and give thanks for all the rides.
HER PHOTO
Here’s a giddy view of the Grand
Canyon shot from the skittish
mule trail, while vacationing families
pose in front of cameras on the rim,
an hour after dinner, sunset gathering.
She shot this from the trail that winds
down dust to the river straight below
her camera, as it keeps on eating
away at the world-famous view.
She isn’t in the picture, she’s just
the eye behind the lens that sees some-
thing worth the price of pushing a button
at this edge of precipice.