metabolizing unfixable

with a half stick of dynamite,
a hand-carved sled,
and a horse named 'ole lead'
big pap snatched coal from the creek bed
to heat the heart speck of puncheon creek

first holler principles solved
before my first holler back

november 3, 1969,
bootlegged creek heat smuggled all my bodies
all the way here,
just to learn what is worth the carry

like the flowers i picked for granny
by the steps of the old rock church
where red and brunette brides chimed,
became sisters,
where families were born

the old rock church sits
abandoned now
bombed by out of mindedness

her hill still clings to the climb behind it though

quarter mile straight up
through copperhead country
through the green throat of kudzu
swallowing what we meant to keep

on up her hill my people are marked
by chain link, plastic flowers and mossy stones
older than the year granny died at 104,

but, in the years before,
dad and uncle gordon carried hoes to kill snakes,
swung blades through vine-choke
like surgeons cutting toward a pulse

climbed that hill alongside granny to talk
with the hive mind of puncheon creek,
swarm liturgy tethered like umbilical cords
to a path you wouldn't know was there,

unless you saw a four-wheeler
loaded with ribbons, flowers and hoes

week before memorial day
our dead tell you they're hungry

on up her hill,
granny's body is missing

but, over a hill in jackson…
so close to mcdonald's you can hear
drive thru big macs and catch the hot bag smell
…she's buried next to papaw,
mom
uncle bert and marvin

daddy and aunt opha have their plots staked,
claims on a country that keeps redrawing its borders in the dark

i have one, earth
bought for the hole it becomes

thresholds:
drive-thru window
hidden graveyard hillside
a bar's neon glow on an empty dance floor
the ridge itself,

all the same fading picture of a swinging bridge
that ain't up to either one anymore

when i go through the drive-thru for fries and an ice cream cone,
i am visiting the way astronauts visit
a revolving airlock on a space station,
the seal itself a chapel where no one kneels
but everyone prays

my plot will stay open- - -
a story that won't contain my ashed body

but, is all my bodies:
watery eyes, carrying hoes, barrel chested
creek folk that once built a womb from a rock church

but, is all my bodies:
dancing in new orleans disco tabernaculums
where hips once flung questions at each other
in a fleshy particle collider set to groove mode

but, is all my bodies:
trying to live work learn play and pray
in a shiny city on a hill

matter becoming light
becoming grief
becoming matter again

all my bodies
shed skin hanging translucent proof
on everything_