Jan/Feb 2010 Poetry |
Mallory's Element
George Mallory lost in 1924, found in 1999 on the North Face of Mt. Everest
I slashed a hole in the
atmospheric soup, stolea liter for myself
weeping alveoliinto a gully
there's not enough togo around. That was kind
of you to bury mytibia and femur
in an Aurora ofyellow and green midnight.
Everything collides inbone madness, mosaics.
Send a dispatch codedinto nine isotopes
mud silts and DNA.With or without me the
glacier carves broken ribs.At such altitudes real
matter seeps into acrevasse, the trachea
hallucinates a thinrope of abundance.
I debated crawling,my vest pocket model
B camera graveled.From the second step my
arms bleach into the plume