Tinderbox Trailhead
And then the blast
I am reeling
The projector rewinds
Your caftan
Slides under the canopy
Still warm after 20 years
Soon fragments will emerge that will
Never be pieced back together
Gunpowder scented fingertips
Can a diagram
Map the first blow
Do you remember it?
The gray blue boulders
Under a mountain cascade
The color of bruises
A rotary phone
Flying like a grenade
Chipping the metatarsal bone
Spliced images like dreams
The pressure of matchsticks
Dotted lines
like a busy signal . . .a boundary, a hem stitch
the frame is melting
Walking the trail swollen and dazed
It is the little injuries
Apparent invisibility
Which starts the countdown
(Mark Fischer Poetry Prize Winning Poem, 2011)
