summer at taos
after D.H. Lawrence
what we find
as we drive in is a fissure
that tracks flatter
ground like a scar
an expanse of granite
& cloud long enough
to match the vowels in a word –
what was it
the word we saw a hundred miles back on a highway overhang
the one we couldn’t pronounce
*
is a chasm of starlight
what you envisioned
is that what ripped
the earth and everything apart
actual stars
pulled down from star-filled skies
to rest like adornment in rock
i hold a spiral fossil
in my palm
in my palm also i can fit
the breakage of a gorge
the vision of you as you drive
i tell you the fossil is called starlight
the night-sky can stay where it is
*
you & i
learned to identify
fossil and geode together
but on that day i wasn’t watching
the ground i was watching you
i was watching the calliopes
sonation of tail & wing and theirs
was also a name i whispered
my mouth wanting to learn
the character of o & i
*
we pry open
what we know of each other
how far we can drive without
disjuncture
(if we have disjuncture let it be beautiful
as two unexpected textures
adobe & rusted wire
green chile beer
aluminum on cold green water)
*
what we once protected
we expose
like the west
wall of a canyon at daybreak
you speak to me in strips of light
in words i can pronounce
you are what i find & what i found
along the road
in the tumbled shadowed white
& you who gave me a name you
give me a turn
let me drive out
at night starlight
in every breach
Nerveless Taos 