Spider Stories

When I drive up mountain roads,
To see my latest sweetheart,
My heart aches to know
These trails were blasted from
Rocks alive with countless years
Of blood and love and other words,
From as many languages as
Seven year cicadas hiding in the ground,
Where the anakeesta lies in wait
Spitting poison at the dynamite,
Leaking heavy metal to the mines.

I have two hearts wedged
Tight between my lungs,
And each beats with different wants-
One for hot dinners cooked together,
Stained linoleum and cheap sofas,
Nights spent warm and quiet breaths,
Precious shifting from side
To back to side again, with arms and legs
Folding and unfolding like pocket knives.

The other organ sighs for pines
Not growing to hide clear cuts
Shaved by the interstate but
Lungburn from far cold distances,
Coast to coast with South summer
Kudzu warping around the
Square-barked trunks
The way our fingers slide together
Between his chest and mine
When we sleep

Which heart beats more audibly
Against the rhythm of the wheels
Beating the asphalt like a war drum?
Is it a compromise worth
Minds trapped in living the life
Driving paved trails
Carved in the walls of my church,
Floor of my home, my own soft thighs?
And sweet nothing days
Speed by, filling up hours
Promised to shifting the tides of
Of love as a currency.