West - by August Kleinzahler
An apocalyptic crack spreads like thunder
over sintered gorges and alkali flats.
The junco is knocked sideways then drops
as if shot onto a granite bed, turning
slowly mahogany there-wild peony.
Somewhere in the bleached sky and cirrus a Phantom
is at play, singeing cattle, lifting shingles
off farmhouse roofs. An enormous ball
of phosphorus bounds across the Carson Sink.
-Christ, it was hot out there on the Jackass Flats
after that big wave of wire, sagebrush
and rattlesnakes broke over us.
The Paiute flint auger fairly hummed
with chromium when they pulled it out of Stillwater Marsh.
You could listen to it like a conch shell,
an impossible busy, serial music
that compounds and accelerates, on and on.
Love,
Lucas
