Badlands (I)
At three
a boy came down a hill on his bike.
He looked down to see you
carved in his left thigh.
There were horses there,
five bands together,
valleyed,
bathing in red ponds.
He couldn’t feel them grazing
or feel the stream that had worn you.
He couldn’t see the water carrying his tissue away:
making buttes of his sinew, plateaus of his plain.
But he knew something had brought you.
He knew erosion and its purpose.
And when he saw you his voice fell in.