1/30 2015

Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo et mundabor,
Lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.

Let the river rise.

Let the catfish-back bottom shift,

let the mountains and the rocks fall

on the strip malls and hair salons

the all night gas stations.

Let the stone quarry disgorge what it holds

the truck, the bones, the dark.

Let the fracking ponds,

the coal slurry and the rusted tanks

come undone.

Let the earth open its throat

and swallow men, and coal and dark

in a whirl of dust.

Let the trainyards burn.

Let the boarded storefronts and the darkened houses

settle into rot,

Let moss burst through the bricks

Let the flood wipe away the names

scrawled on the wall.

Let Flood. Let Fire.

Let Dark.

Untie, Unravel. Unclock.

Let the dead come from their silent house.