Storming Toward a Precipice
Storming Toward a Precipice
Original Text
Ortiz, Simon J. After and Before the Lightning. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1994: 49.
1A diesel freight truck
2roars toward us.
3A precipice is no mirage
4for its metal plunge.
5It is headlong nevertheless.
6"It carries its own storm,"
7I say dryly, feeling
8my tongue wet my lips.
9Trapped steel storming,
10the faint line just so,
11 just inches
12 just split time,
13 just nothing more
14than luck keeps us alive.
15The mirage of metal storming
16is a precipice, no mirage.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2004