he raised the andes
in my thigh
an endless chain
of high pitched malice
strewn across the scorched earth
of my memory
there are rivers
moving among structures of calamity
those mountainous obstructions
that go against the view
they run to everywhere
i am a swollen thing. large
through the kindness of enmity
still flowing
a dry kind of wet
blood baptism
a body stretched to the ends of his earth
with salt around my rim
from the window he looked
across blackened plain
and saw a need for mountains
in the too open
to fortify borders
that complicate crossing
and leave only a rugged way to come
to destroy the perception of ease
and dig for me places to hide
to discipline land
the way men do
so he raised in me
endless chains of mountain skin
opened and closed
by a love of creation
only god could know
in the delicate stitches
between intention and ideal
i am still
touching ridge and river
running fingers through a landscape
of love and bitter cold
carved out of bedrock and condition
i am covered in love
mother nature, be merciful
