Mountain Body

after “Crater Heart” by Tennessee Hill

by Sarah Carleton

Such intimacy back then.


Night sinking below my feet

like a coverlet cut from whole cloth

or a flat lake


balancing a mold-slippery raft.

Now—you uncorked hours, you

sower of seeds—the ground is prepared

for dawn’s constellation.


I will scuff the North’s shadows

from my toes. Tango of bees.


How graceful, my dance with the earth.