#26

Climbing a ladder of tourniquets,
a step-climb arm reach,
the clumsy approach of body parts,

moving along the cliffside,
mountain face revealing skulls,
the skeleton arm stretch of trees,

the messy movement heading
upward, upward, upward
in a skin of mud and slippery vein,

this place where the world was forged
in blood, solid like clay, the off-shape
size of a planet made of broken

limbs, molten torsos, the sweat
from a thousand bodies cooking
for a thousand years,

and you don't even realize
your feet are hidden in
the dirty, blood margin of its face.