Property Line

Descending hastily down a hilly slope, falling away
where gold yields to parched and pallid emerald,
finds strewn a precise edge; raggedly incising soft earth,
a scalpel applied by hands unnoticed.
An impetuous break in things.
A property line finds one, and in doing makes the other;
either side wholly divided, detached, unmet.

What belongs to each is each.

Scrutinize an imperfect boundary,
and yielding secrets, it quavers;
beneath it, buried deep below quiet skin, a boiling tangle of
roots, trembling and twisted,
marry themselves in a gorgeous union.
Whole heavens form beneath the baked ground, where
a watery mess of stars explodes silently.

Still, the blistering sun agonizes.
Weightless light streams from the sky,
pouring to the ground, spilling everywhere and
pressing itself close.
Bottomless valleys all sing heavenward.

Roots drink desperately from each other.
They gasp and tremble in a feverish embrace;
and when no rain comes, mewl tenderly and
begin the steady exchange of
miserably hot blood.