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Blast Log
Your body tense as hay-twine,
your skin cool to touch, your notes
shivery and blue when you write
below my chicken-scratch: another
blast time. And license tags
of the chemical trucks rattling by,
headed for the orphan ponds
at the valley fill. We record the cracks
in our vinyl siding, flyrock damage,
the oily residue you hose off. We tune
the scanner. Sometimes find clues
about the next blast. Or permits
in the newspaper. You look for
the waxwings that nested
in the locust last year.
I count the moles on your back
with my grass-stained hands,
each brown spot a prayer I mouth
against omens in ridgeline, in creek
and sky, against jagged borders,
changes in color, shape, or size.
In Prenter Hollow
where the energy company fills
secret lagoons with sludge, pumps
millions of gallons into boreholes,
old mine shafts, cracking the aquifer—
In the frame house sided
with asphalt shingles,
in the bathtub veined with cracks,
smears we can't bleach clean,
I run a puddle, shed my clothes
that the washer will stain
with rust swirls—
In water laced with grit,
rotten-egg-smell,
I squat, hug my knees,
swipe my chest, sprinkle my head,
and when my love brings a towel
with her water-burned hands,
I rise up, barely wet—
In the wells and hollows
of my body, spoils accrue,
ores that alter my blood,
mottle my arms with sores,
and bid stones to rise in the deeps,
even as my cells fight back,
skin flushes,
I'm the red rag
calling for a strike—