Reading Ballistics and Conceiving a Journey to the Top of Chimney Rock

I wish I could climb a rock
fingers in cracks and feet en pointe
through rubber
my soul wants to rise up
through to the clouds above the summit
and I wish

I could read a book of poems
while I was shimmying
jimmying, and scraping to the top.

I wish his words–Billy’s words were there
at each cinch and in each crevasse
speaking in forms of detached
and animated cartoon mouths
so I could reap
so I could roll back my eyes
while my muscles contract.
The striated, lean, and corpusculous
tissues conquering the planet’s skin.

The crag should drink my blood
where the sun could bake it black
with everything but the carbon evaporating,
because of such a rough disagreement
of skin and bone with sediment.

I See the Moon

At a Red Light Where No One Waits

Even after years of church,
I see the prayers
I have not prayed,
not the ones to come
later on,
but rather those meditations
of my heart
that I did not speak
with closed dark eyes
hands folded out of habit.

I see them in a crosswalk
not walked across
and at a red light
where no one waits.

I see them in tea leaves
steeped and sipped
but not Seen.

They live in the wood body
of a guitar in my closet
whose diaphragm waits taut
for breath so it may sing again.

They live in O and N
on a damp window pane,
where lips were near
and love is vain.