Elizabeth Wing

We try to get to the glacier, get cucked by snow
You know the way Jesus looks down all gentle at the paint-drips
of his blood and knows it is not his, it is ours
I’m afraid the way I labor will be this flat, this grueling

I have a friend who drove his friend off a cliff because he thought it
was the only way to end a bad dream
The weasels slink between the aisles of this poem, the pearls of their eyes sclera-less, unreadable
The rain drums the rig, the rain channels back to the old river

I tell you the story about the tribe of Yogoth and the tribe of Orr – how they fought until the sea washed their markings clean
The ground lolls up wet, smelling of sweetgrass
Higher up the mountain, a waterfall still gargles like a song in reverse
No god has turned the faucet
& the river’s raw-dogging it over the jagged lava rock

We’re telling everyone about an abandoned tugboat
crawling with weasels, weasels slipping
out of the portholes, weasels slinking
between cracks, their bodies shaped like bratwurst, their claws skittering
over the planks

The boat pushes off the dock and we straggle
back to the rig, half-drowned but warm with each other
We don’t remember falling asleep & the roof only leaks a little

I dreamt we took down the old ones
from the hill where they’d been crucified:
their perfect bodies luminous
in the shallow summer night
They’d nailed up
the Horned God
& the High Priestess of No Fucks Given
The hill slumped down to the sea,
its coastline messy with rosehips and sea-rot
And at the base, the 7-11,
its windows bright like cartoon eyes
with no pupils
Inside, I walked the aisles
I needed something: it might have been
silence or salt
The Horned God’s side wound
dripped like strawberry sorbet
I stood at the counter, my hands full of wants
& the cashier had his eyes on the screen
where they kept looping the footage
of the crucifixion
And a bystander said No one is saved
but we have our choice of purgatory