trails

Basalt, deep black, bubbles
from when the rocks were still breathing

A winding serpent, and
constellation at my back

If one thousand years later and
the rock is still warm and

with two fingers I trace
what you carved right here

how far apart are we, really?

Remember death twice a day,
I’m halfway there

how to get divorced

My friend discloses the Samra family remedy used
when she twisted her ankle. Sprinkle turmeric
on half a lemon, apply to the wounded area
to reduce swelling and inflammation.
It really works, she confides, as if I could have doubted.
You’ll get up the next morning, do
the same thing you did yesterday
because that’s what you know how to do.

We flip through comics, I imagine my chest
cross-strapped with rounds of halved lemons
glinting gold with turmeric,
Punjabi healing ammo for the swollen heart
so engorged it prevents air from filling my lungs,
but I’m learning to function short of breath
how to walk off a plane with no one
in particular expecting to hear from me.

Untethered, shallow, I might float right
out that window.

Same thing you did yesterday, draw air in deep, take
your lesson from the steady note of a saxophone.
Exhale. You will not float away, but you will float the way
that sax notes sit heavy on air, earthy and grounded
even while they drift.

The timbre of another man’s voice and thick red wood
begets an ache for imagined future shared roots
in damp, forgiving earth. Where I am, roots
grow on rocks, in cracks, all scrabble and scratch
for the yield in the unyielding.

Place a rounded, sun warmed stone
on your belly and pebble in each hand
to weigh you down. Stone and rock to avoid
getting lost in resonant timbre,
disoriented in red wood.

Someone plucked the outer ring from the trunk
pulled deliberately, unraveled the entire tree. They might
do the same to me. Veins unpeeled slowly from
each limb. Leaving me a stone, rocks on belly
and hands. Who really needs roots anyway.