East Summit Trail

by Jesse Breite

Mountain

 

 

 

 

 

 

God’s broken teeth spit out
and tumbled
from the bald peak, gurgled
from earth’s hot belly.
Pinnacle Mountain
is the only peak I’ll always
climb in silence.
The congregation of lizards
waits and listens
to the shifting stems,
the heart’s blossom,
that heavy pulsing out
of flesh-petals.
My body weeps confessions
on stone altars–
all the sins of my youth flush
in the dragonfly air.
The hot sun forgives as much
as it can, but the earth
wants more. Black-eyed angels
sit high on the ledges.
They will ask if I recall
the boy who fell, or the one
hanging from the tie, and the trees
will be worn smooth
from rankled hands.
This is to empty what I’ve kept
for so long, and it is endless.
The river looks thick as snakes
up there. Akimbo
on the brink, broken rock can be
softer than flowers
if what’s pretty was always
supposed to be difficult
to understand, hard to find.

 

Category: Poetry, SNHU Creative Writing, SNHU online creative writing