Poem Sunday

Falling Over

Stilted, a tattered old skinner’s shack, tilted and held

from collapse by a blistered and broken apple tree, bares

a fresh coat of paint.  Faintly I remember her fingernail polish

and his blood spilled by spear.  So glossy at first,

What were you saying by falling over, falling down, giving up?

A hapless old hound caught napping lay pinched

between the splintered boards of the skinner’s shack and the ground.

Flies wait for the breeze to die.

I could rise from my back

to change my angle,

try to see if the dog had a collar,

but I’d disturb the black beetle burrowing with his crusted head of horns

between the rocky soil and my shoulder blade.

Now I lay me down to sleep,  I thought.

It had taken three hours, but I was sure

that not a bit: a beetle, a blade of grass or a breath of air

was any longer aware of my presence.  I had grown there

or was blown there from across the Sawtooths

and was welcome now like the dog.  The ground supports me.

The ants treat me like dirt — how dirt should be treated.

They travel purposefully enough to form trails.

They know their home, but bend

to account for bodies that may fall in the way.  I had not accounted

for a fallen savior or for falling in love.

My pulpy pale skin may be gone tomorrow.  Here today

a broken branch, a rotting dog, the way life catches unawares.

The sun is still up,

the broken apple tree still provides supper, and home

is still up hill at the end of the trail.  Like the ants

I could find home in a skunky apple, let it stick to my lips

like a junk food prayer — begging to lie

with her, to wear her skin with my fingers, or push my hand

into my Savior’s side, my head, and then my whole self.

Now I lay me down to sleep.

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.