first secret

ladders of afternoon light

you could strip under

losing your shirt felt like losing

nothing at all

losing your way, nothing

stepping through barbed rungs

rust in hand

straining a prayer slow and sure

bare spine cool

house at your back, far behind

ribs softening in the sun slide

fallow field

you were not to cross,

but that

you would

icarus and lucifer

eclipses bare teeth
strike mine
my
how large
are
we who plummet
pummel
plumb
earth

live idol

shipped my weight in gold
zagging mountainsides, dodging passes
now carried openly
straightening streets
a graven image to be struck down for

when bearers bungle that weight
will it walk or lie
broken stubs of poetry, bone, heart fossil-
a rock once bone -

sweep and peddle grubby bricolage
tinkering for distance
and never return,
re zagging mountainsides, dodging passes.

smooth edges

taut cirrus clouds squeeze star
light onto my skin
i have tramped out to be seen
and shored up as the moon
burnished and hayed field.