Pour by Sheila Packa

I dance on the Divide
run against gravity
and translate the dead.
Tuesday carried me off
and sky came looking with birds.
The world reversed
and the river went the other way.
On the rapids
words flow forward —
words go back.
One deep winter in the north
It rained all day
until the ice broke free.
Maybe the star
that fell into me the red coal
unknowingly sent the waves
away from shore, upside down
to the old forces
that churn the molten sea.
I was iron under siege.
Tuesday poured me out
in clouds of smoke and steam
cast me into steel beams.