Boulders
of trees give way
to beaches and a sky
that reminds
me of Neruda:
blue
with the night
of the ocean.
The other
side is an other
world. Immediately.
Where a two hour highway
bisects
national forests
all the while
rejecting me out
right.
“Like a blister,”
Holly says,
as we move through
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
Yes,
I feel it, too,
a cancerous hair
forcing itself
out of this rind of sand,
these black rocks,
these wind-stained cabins.
I am not Neruda’s diver:
Time after time
he takes hold of the water, the sand
and is
born again.
I am
the cancer.
A whiteout is coming –
I smell it
in the air, sweat and dead fish
blown off
Lake Michigan –
I smell it
in the seagulls’
dinosaur cries –
but it’s summer yet
and I see no
bears where
I know
there are bears,
where skunks
are road kill and
thunderstorms
reveal
stubbornness floating
in a canoe,
eating pasties.
I haven’t seen a house
for twenty minutes,
power lines the only
link
to human nature.