Calisthenics, week 9

From last week's "Pass the books" exercise:

Earth of Woman

One night she burnt her leg on the exhaust
of a mountain
of impatience.

Today the scab funnels coolness into our cheeks,
shifting like thoughts
that can't find a way
to be said.

Things crumbled. Naturally.

But what if the soft eyes opened?
If they, too, lived in a wood
where she ruled
violent and angry.

"Pick that shit up," she might say.
"Go on, Crackhead."
She might forget her mother tongue
quickly,
like the sweat of Vietnam,
constant as hunger,
while we mate improbably as you do.

"I eat, I shit, just like you," she might say.
"The tomatoes will smell like rat if you don't eat them soon."

I never fail to be amazed by her earthiness
though I am truly a godfather to the giant
red bushes which will descend in a thundering
halo of darkness and purification.

God says remember, god says don't give up,
God says
give up.