(a golden shovel after Bruce Springsteen)
Wet ash and blood dirt roll a song with the backbeat of skin begging to grow into sea. / Hey
I never asked for your madness / but I’ll slip it on & nibble it to the edge / drink all the little
shadows digging phantom wells / that flood me with bright teeth, smoky hair & the dreams a girl
keeps like a bent knife in her boot / like a fistful of borrowed fire. / Empty me where the forest is
thick-throated / & moonlight hushes moss into a gloss of midnight creatures / that open your
miserable hunger. / Where a scorch of webs undo the birds / unmother the sky. / I know daddy
can’t help me now. / Nothing to do / but roll into the slick black water & beg for home.
*line from “I’m on Fire” © 1984
