Suddenly I know it was inside

a long time, maybe always, like the ghost

in the story who appears on the edge

of the highway.  Or the body 

inside the body that burns but only

to keep burning. The pictures

of telephone poles and bodies

we passed over in favor

of a better story of where we’d been

or what we came from. And

the land so injured, mute–shoes

on telephone poles in freezing Pittsburgh.

I managed not to see for most 

of my life the seam like oil under

the glitter of road.  I listened to Iggy

Pop sing, and that hardness, that leathery

sheen now tasted like sorrow 

or ash. I remember once on a hillside

hearing the voices of someone

saying “Come here back.”  Ponderosa

smell of cantaloupe and honey.

And grass, the smell of grass.  I saw

a bluebird, and then an eagle, flying.

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