What Wears Out or Up After Time

Out of the valley mist that low hollow hangs.
Out of the moan of thick river ice pull gone locked.
Come melt.  Come rainbow sheen, glistening.
Come wool of clouds opening up.

Out of the forest thins.  Down hemlock,
split pine.  Up the derrick still sap-sticky.
Up the open-bellied stores and hotels.
Up the facade and the see-through-the-cracks.
Come the war-tired boys still blind of love,
still hungry, still pistol armed.

Out of thirst and holes and mud comes oil.
Red velvet curtains gone muddy, creek gone muddy loud,
comes screams of hairless horses, their burning bodies spelling into night.
Out of the locked-up girls who open their legs because of fists.

Come something red as cardinals.  Out of bread lines and dead letters
and lost children come thick pipes and steel laid down to out.
Come spit in your face.  Come hot breath. 
Come the fold in, the knock down, the every man for himself,
the bury it, the get out, the fire that burns to the ground.

Come the ashes sifting down.   Come the years.
The heavy dirt that don’t rise ‘til you dig in. 
Come the buried river, still moving.
Come the ghosts of those girls, thick hair blossoming—
Come the words still whispered from their lips.