Sheep forage at the rim

of this unfinished mesa.

In a slight updraft,

bending over the lip,

pale grass wiggles bare-rooted.

The edges are eating the center.

Wind, water, hooves, the touch of a bird's talon

Everything adds to the loss.

The land will become fully horizoned.

​

Stare and look away:

Ghosts of the mesa are there still.

​

The rifted mesas bear veins,

like a diagram sketched on the wind

and flattened on a bedding plane,

erasing the height.

Sitting on this balcony,

wrenching unrecorded history from the signs

(a color, a crack, a tiny yellow sparkle or crystal),

is like finding a tombstone with your own name.

Your tongue tells of the disintegration,

Which arises not like a bubble surfaces

but like a piece of candy melts into a pool.

I sit and look

and then stand and look.

Nothing comes on the wind, and I grab it.