The low railing was broken at certain points,
and there were look-outs every mile or so.
You know the place, you may have seen
sports-cars drawing S's along the bends,
from above or below, on television.
A crackle of static: you shut it on and off,
like the images you might use to tell a story
of a friend's death by shit-luck or suicide
only to find them washed out. So you
try again, because on that same road
your father flew daily between two gates
to nothing on either side (dynamited
mountain on one hand, cliff on the other)
and no space in the rocks hooked
in him its vacuous come-hithering index.
In winter time the waters froze and frilled
the mountain with ice like bangs
on a girl's forehead. I might have said
it was beautiful and left you blind
with a dead word, but now you know.
and there were look-outs every mile or so.
You know the place, you may have seen
sports-cars drawing S's along the bends,
from above or below, on television.
A crackle of static: you shut it on and off,
like the images you might use to tell a story
of a friend's death by shit-luck or suicide
only to find them washed out. So you
try again, because on that same road
your father flew daily between two gates
to nothing on either side (dynamited
mountain on one hand, cliff on the other)
and no space in the rocks hooked
in him its vacuous come-hithering index.
In winter time the waters froze and frilled
the mountain with ice like bangs
on a girl's forehead. I might have said
it was beautiful and left you blind
with a dead word, but now you know.
