Broken Country

By: T.M. GÖttl

The mountainside creature's recoil,

striped back and soybean fingertips,

cracks my bunker walls, the inset

limestone amulets and oilcloth windows.

The cobblestone church has fixed itself

in constant feud with the breakfast cottage,

boundary wars over the remains

of leather and shoes in the breakwall churchyard.

So much contention and playing cards, twisted

in the fields of snowdrop lovers, the

cracked and empty bottles, leaving trash

and mule hairs behind.

I began hiding woodshed pears and mangos

in the sanctuary, behind the reliquary alcoves, under

the feet of lodestone stains. I pocketed

the masqueraded broken wafers of gold, the

piled spools of planetary refuse. Dust, all dust.

I could hear

the gorgons flying over,

chasing pelican trails and scattering the sand mandalas

across tundra sheaf -and-river fields. I heard them

crying for the land, crying for the chipped blue paint,

for the rooms of dead and crowded silent strangers.

In the dark corner, I press the heroine's empty diadem

to my chest, blinking leonine. Reciting

alchemical punctuation and consulting the

Urim and Thummim, I make a sacred promise

to fly.