After Adrienne Rich
Seems the earth assumed the light
different here, seems the so direct sun
in its high spike rays fell
into earth as cholla quill
and yucca spine, everything here
could pierce you, even the pine plume
of juniper pollen
and the snakeweed, bitter like, post-monsoon—
what I notice is a record of sharp light
and sharp greens, dormant essence released
in a sudden wet purge
but its not complete
unless the soles of me meet
a few unrelenting quills who find in me
some blood to bleed
I was so soft
I carried the swell for days
as a purple globe and “why would this earth
protect herself from everything that is she?”
what I mean is the scat in October
is full of pink, still prickly things
the strange harm of sustaining things
tufts of belly fur as if gifted
to opuntia limb, who, in its time
becomes velveteen
I once caught a crow
from the road I peeled its light
body, limp like, crushed
me at such a young age
to behold its unmoving sheen
the way it trusted my hands
as I buried it into a shallow wet hole,
torn from grass, its eye I knew
was to be reabsorbed if not by ant
or the crawling earth, time
whose flickering change
of heart did not arrive protected
so how could I thicken myself from you
who entered so deep? Who stayed
splintered, as memory
I could not walk
I had to dance
around you
silver sword of light, sleeved
in my sole, the thing I came for
when finally I bend
into sharp,
blanched arroyo and choose
to join this earth (will you)
teach my daughter
to dance