6.

	      Cold, cold, so much rain it enters the bones. Tremor in the hand 
			           that turns the boiler knob. From one easy twist,
     coal fire instantly pulled from an open pit. Mine-truck, 
						           on a haul-road somewhere, 
		      tire-tread lanes 
            making the last connections left between body and brain. The trick: 
										
	            cut deep to make Things, 
					            a language of Things,  
		  		          to fill the hole caused by that first cut.
						              
		I crawl back into bed, close my eyes, and I’m back in the desert:
a raven’s eye studied us from cliff-side juniper shade...a second raven 
		                                   landed on a nearby outcrop, 
							                               edge of the long drop,    
	      five croaks between them.  	
						    	    Out there,
 
			        red level after red level: vermilion pinnacle corner-cuts,   
			     							              sun-broken   
        where carnelian rectangles  
				            eye-stepped a steep slope down crumble-rock 
						           to ochre clay. Vast...
 
				      No such thing as America here, I said.   

I was born — right then, right there — on that cliff,  
                                          a fence lizard’s snout emerging from the shade of a sandstone hole,
							                        shadow against shadow.

         Grey-red dust-sluices meandered through black-brush, 
					 	                                 a mile, two miles, down 
					                                                      
 		 And the ravens cried as they fell, black wings spread,     
	    a black language echoing off the walls of the canyon below
   

					                                      Long scar 
					       			                        of an old mining road 

Christien Gholson  | Tidal Flats 7
Contents | Mudlark No. 63 (2017)