Sideling Hill, MD (Wikimedia Commons)

 

Look at the rock cut
to carve the highway
and see the history
of its making —
molten rivers molded
appearing frozen
while working out
their next dissolution,
replenishing plenitude
apparent only
as it’s lavished
lava-like.

What about the earth
that even solid rock
is not, but all in transit,
crazy tracks visible
in marble bands
rumpled like bed sheets —
so full it must brim,
reach, spill, get lost,
carried in capillary
action, in endless
emptying and
resurrection?

Published in the July 6, 2018 issue: View Contents
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Elizabeth Poreba is a retired New York City high-school English teacher. Her poems have appeared in Commonweal and the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion among other journals. Wipf and Stock has published two collections of her work, Vexed and Self Help: A Guide for the Retiring. Her latest chapbook, New Lebanon, is available for advanced order at finishinglinepress.org. More of her work can be found at elizabethporeba.com.

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