Charles Mahaffey
Poem
of shaded canyons harvested ruins cluttered over
red faced rock.
You know this as birth. In a tomb the messiah waited.
His tongue split open, “water” he cried. Sand begot the father
not mother &
he suffered so.
Can you imagine fruit grows there?
With her figs and pomegranates glyphs dug into cliffs,
& still men march like termites.
The mouth of a mound grows when fed.
There are some truths that do not want to be known and there are others who are stained
white.
These are her shaking faults of rock called barren
worthless stone
with eons worn
down to smooth
But barren is bare if nothing flows beneath the ground swelling.
She is swelling.
& clouds grope the ceilings.
Our bodies are melting in forgive-
ness.