Portal

Rag of colts fringe-ripped by wind
& unfurling over the basin’s parched terrain—
rising easterly—the fissured ridgeline crumbing
the basin floor; boulders rolled & rocks
plangent; swath fresh scar & the switchgrass
beneath the widening sky—mottled foal nosing
the fieldstone; portal into degrees difference,
proscenium arch leading the horses to shade
in the reach of the sun-drenched boulders.

~

The river’s bridge we look over, earth
exposed in the scour, river’s drift, road-cut
blasted with Roosevelt dynamite; night-crossing
the bridge’s south-end where headlights invent
cement guard-rails, a body reclined on them,
river swift & lit by the sidewalk lights as meteors
flash against the dark blue sky.

~

We have gone on to say suspicion: bridge activity
implying uncertain outcomes—come the river—
gone be the rocks, read & re-read is the land’s lilt
& shift, sift of earth’s surface, ocean & water
dredging the tops of mountains. Gone be
the slaughterhouse sludge, filling pipes beneath
the city, the catfish lengthening in murk downstream,
where fishermen cast cable, end-gaffed with pigeon
flesh, pierced & current pulled until the cable throbs
& pickups haul channel cats from the current seam—
algae, eddy-twisted—the river’s throbbing tumor.

~

Whiskered thing hover the silt bottom, navigating
brusque water, the rusting fenders, two or three
dulse-covered chassis; the boxcar, silt-filled & there
only because we heard the winter derailment;
two cars spin-drifting as far from the train, skid
& spark-surged over cement, the city’s southern
edge & displaced water, water removed from its
sedentary lull—vertical swelling, molecules shaping
the boxcar plunge, swallowed whole the steel
freight; portal: anything from the chain, unchained;
gone be the clarity of entrance through which
all description is lost.