The Last Work

I found the fossils, I found the work sites, 

I found the dead ends and sinking bones, 

I found the last work done in Utah 

In the windpipe of the desert.

They couldn't hide in the switchback tongues 

Stained by sand cigarettes,

They couldn't listen in the grit-glued air of cracked 

Lashes and clicking snaps of clenched teeth chewing thoughts,

They couldn't breathe by fist to torso sized tafoni 

Riddling the sandstone like cancer eaten alveoli,

They could only watch their friends be devoured,

We now find these lost Greek gods caught 

And buried on the wrong continent.

All hills are clutched hands on long forgotten bodies,

Their uncut nails crumble and cascade to earth.

Our roads are body bag zippers, 

And we've called their time of death

Smoothroofed mesas were their sand-castles when

They worked in the ocean, but lay and die in dry beds.

We climb up catacomb ladders in these open air 

Tombs, and scale these stretchmarked hips.

We see their snow-salted mountains staying covered

With ash from dinosaur pyres not yet finished falling, 

A flame-tailed wake of dead dusts trailing away. 

Reviews

[John Destalo]

Cool piece. Makes me think of all the history that is buried and what we think we know may be wrong if we are willing to see what is actually there. Plus I really like your descriptions of a specific place. My favorite image is "They couldn't listen in the grit-glued air of cracked
Lashes and clicking snaps of clenched teeth chewing thoughts,"