penetrated and penetrating 
outside the soft fingers
of smoke stacks.

In my lungs, I take my first chalky gulp
of the Earth’s blood.
The smell of metal
burns the ropes of my brain’s bridges
for the thoughts in my lobes—one from one, 
nature from not,
lust from the axe fall of progress—

down narrow chasms they walk
into narrower chasms,
no way to tell which tunnel getting smaller 
will collapse and cause the stroke.

Down this path: a single slit of light
flits a rainbow sheen on mushroom skin.
Down that path: a holding cell
with a door leading to a locked door 
leading to a brick wall.

I find myself
in the musty cavern air
folding into other others
cut at the seam
by the thin strand of light leaking 
from the quartz-crystal meat split 
in the cave wall’s weakest spot.

I am starting to understand
retroactively
the language of the girders
trapped in the skyscrapers I once walked in.

How stuck in place
to be bathed in
that three o’clock light
licking my shoes made of leather.

Only now do I understand the bones of that metal playing 
leafily
their flutes made of siren and floodlight.

I thank them for their labor 
with my legs dangling
and a whistle made of reeds. 
I play them my blood’s song.