Blue Ridge Mountain Runaway

High cries broke

from that salt-beaded neck

above splintered hands

dangling on strings.

Now rest hushed in moonshine

between bar lines

as lead begins to drip.

We escaped on the trail of rhapsody

to the crossroads of flattened steps

until the air had a bite

facing an Aeolian hall.

You reworked the elements

and shot into a deep heavy dazzle

slapping guts, beating petticoats to pop

and shed away to flaps.

And mine fell in the middle of waves

of underwire domes weighted in their seats,

hissing what good will come since we began with that form.

But as you bend

over me, my arms lift up and open,

as if none of us have ever done this before.

* * *

Searchlight

turning madly, mutely with 120 volts

fastened to ground the coy bonnet fidgets

streaming them lucidly to fortune and targets

they plunge deeper into foreign territory,

with fraying bootstraps inching into blackness digging

hastily before history remembers them ghosts

others, entrenched together chins wet with sludge

firing in a far away land, a final moan

faces blown right down to the bone

a seven-year-old girl with a six-week-old scar asks:

why do they sing ‘and many more’?

with black-and-blue eyes on her birthday

let’s change the subject to the translation

of the Blockbuster, to think it’s already bringing in millions

how many billions more could be made?

everyone must find out about it

flashy promos for the biggest stars

there should be signs in lights

but how do you penetrate

the dark between naked maple’s limbs

waiting to be coated in ice?