Flaming Cliffs... Orpimental Sunrise
In northern Georgia, in the Caucasus, in a village
a mile from a bulldozed arsenic factory, in Black Valley,
children cough and cough, hawk-up golden phlegm...
pigment to paint the blonde hair of a Hollywood starlet.
You are not there, no. You have just dreamed
the Flaming Cliffs of Mongolia... horsemen westward,
a half million of them for blood and Moscow dumplings.
You have dreamed orpiment crystal crafted
into skull pendants encased in gold... museum pieces
too deadly for proms, weddings, honeymoons, funerals...
You have dreamed and now you stare into a posthole
not quite deep enough for cedar posts if they are cedar.
Somewhere you have never been and will never go:
a soft rain muddies an arsenic dump... not far
from a flooded mine where water rises softly
to caress jade-green walls that rise toward sunlight yellow.
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