poem for my InnerSpark application

Do you know how she became like this?—

Transformed from how you found her—

Breaking into fragments

And mixing with the sand.

She was monumental.

She lay across the Rocky Mountains,

But now she is eroding.

Look at her—

At the shadows made by the angles of her jagged bones.

You may see her in segments,

Love her in portions—

Her distance and misery,

The erotic tingle nudging at your senses,

Her restless, pleading eyes.

She begs to sink into the sand

And suffocate in vastness;

Instead you surround her with your arms and mind.

She fades into you.

You, mountaineer— you had

Trudged across her sloping breasts—

Explored the concave of her thighs;

You collected the dirt from the tread of your shoes,

And grew plants— from that soil—

That wilted, black, as your memory faded. 

And yet you have contained her.

She settles in garden pots,

And gathers under your fingernails—

Encounters pieces of herself there

That are no longer pieces of herself, for

Now she is the dirt-stains on your hands—

The work-stains of a life

Dedicated to constructing mountains.