Lady of metal, Your Zeppelin Awaits
Three hundred useless business cards
from the job you quit will be
three hundred bookmarks
in a library
that catches fire and falls right
out of the sky.
All that rain in the forecast
will be of burning words.
Do you remember the smell in the air
while Yellowstone was burning?
We were in fourth grade and our city
was hundreds of miles away,
and it taught us the weight
of distance,
contracting.
You could stand at the top of the steps
that led to the playground
and watch time crease the ridge across
the valley.
All that wind and rock and time
before a set of steel doors clanged shut
behind us.
If trapped were the word,
we'd say it.
If born were the word,
we'd be it.
Flip a coin and find
the finger of god in that rock crease,
it's still there.
He tossed a piece of plastic on the green felt
in Reno,
then went home and died there.
Some are born of forgeries, meaning
they are forged.
It's been a long time.
I stayed behind after the bell rang once
and carved your name into the paint
on one of those clanging steel doors.
It's still my dearest crime.
