Christine Hume

[from Christine Hume’s Alaskaphrenia, Green Rose, 2004]

No Less Remarkable Is the Metamorphosis of the Mastodon

Shimmer with mites

            minutes in the clear

Cliff-dripped blinking

Bully the fat-hung cold

By teaching it gongs

Your heads are full of it

            the grass you eat

A dream of being eaten

                        by wind

                        hues of the field

Causes such twisting

And stars orbiting a faint sun

            unproven as it is infinite

The headache you’ll grow into

Suggests all organisms are in the grips

                        of spiral urges

Under these circulations

You could not wear cirrus the way cows do

Always your mange meant to be smoke

            molting, moonglow

You own the smoke, its slow muzzle

Involuntary growl

            in sheep’s clothing

Do you know yet how

To metabolize that magnitude

Ear listening to blank spheres

Ever since incest has been dying out

All your organs redeem rock

Yea, one falls down

Then you fall and unyarn yes sir

            yes sir

&c then centre

is everywhere & then

circumference no where

Aimless and space-shot

You took some doing

Body-beard sweeps

Circles in the dirt

One winter hunger weirds your mind-wires

Curls your backwards

                        question

Infant air hardens like a cranium

Shut inside a cranium dark

Everything goes to prospect