far from town following the Union Pacific
I traced steel lines to boarded shadows and waded in
I thought god’s voice was like this
a human-carved cavern lined with arsenic
the waist-high water a flurry of imperceptible messages
I almost stayed to hear the way they ended
faith as complete as a chill
an exercise in mining the worst possibilities from the ridges
of the brain absent of stalagmitic reach
the cave a fangless arc of jaw
where nothing grew groundward
so frigid for minutes I had no legs
but stillness so thorough it resembled death
though light crept its tepid fingers forward