Ecstatic / Who Goes There?

Ecstatic

Dust hazes sun, like an eclipse.
The dancers come, hips angular,
double copper castanet click,
singing the beasts from the shadows.

The dancers come, all angular
hips, and I ask where the beasts are?
Double copper castanet click
is their reply, more than silence

at least. And the beasts are not yours,
they seem to say. They eat our dead;
you are not dead. Next to silence,
their sound begins to grate. Sun wins,

they seem to say, it eats the dust
and the dead – pale tourists who walk
across this land. Sun always wins
in the desert. Go home and think

about pale tourists, dead walking,
dust hazing them like an eclipse.
Go home and think about how not
to sing the beasts from the shadows.



Who Goes There?

Ripples in the glacial wall resemble 
the iris of an eye, or a whirlpool—

when he touches it, the radial pattern
swarms up into his palm.

In the ice cave, a shelf gives 
like the crust on crème brûlée,

but he no longer fears volcanic springs, 
pulsing tides of desire, or any drive 

dislodging sense with slow vandalism. 
Six hundred miles from settlement, 

and from himself, the thing 
in his place strikes out for home.