Into the Current

Into the Current

We hid mountains under the sheets, a rising core

of flowered Appalachians. You thrust me into the shapes

of krumholtz. Fairy forests at the edge of rock, trees twisted

into storm. Cougar on granite; eager feasting at the warm flesh

of a doe. We hid the wind, the sudden first warm day of April,

snow still in the shadows of the oaks. Heat drove us

from our cave onto the rocks above the precipice. We tumbled, plummeted

into the gorge. Colliding in air, we crashed to the water.

Into the current, over the falls, into the pool. A sudden mountain

pool. Lit by trilliums and bloodroot. Coo

of a mourning dove. The first white-throated sparrow sings. Flies from

under the sheets smack into the still-closed window.

Crumples, chest fluttering, to lie stunned on the bedroom floor.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

(this poem appears in the Feb/March issue of edificeWRECKED, I'm unsure of the year --2005, I think)