When you’re not being poetry
I’ve noticed you can be
A perfect lesson, in Geography.

Your hair, the color of thunderclouds; the highlights
Of lightening streaking
Across your unlined forehead –
Only faintly belies,
The cyclones stirring, static
Slowly rising up off of
Your ashen hair.

Your eyes are huge saltwater lakes
A dead sea; whatever you set your eyes on, turns buoyant. Free.

Clear liquid clouds clinging,
To the atmosphere of your eyelashes – are quick, and generous;
Effortlessly streaming down as tears, infinite in their capacity
To ease a conscience gently,
Into hurt, and healing.

The cliff tops of your cheekbones
So lofty, and still; unaware, absolutely
Of the stunning views their heights offer; a thing of impossible beauty.

Your mouth a desolate crater
Not yet rid of the taste –
A little moon, some meteorites;
Galaxies traveling light years
Just to settle on your tongue tip –
Your words an aftertaste,
Of how other worlds than this
Might feel like.

You proud chin,
An enduring delta;
Letting the deposits of hits taken
In life, love,
And longing – settle down
Into the sturdy ground
You dig your heels into.

The calcium of your fingernails
Glorious stalactites
And stalagmites; the grime
Of time can hardly hard press
Their absolute, furious dazzle.

The rivers that run through your fingers
Make everything they touch
Their own; blue veins spinning
Webs so marvelous,
Turning deception into a tradecraft.

The tectonic plates of your ribs
Quake and quiver,
Constantly frantic
To contain – the
Fiery red-hot molten lava
Of your fierce, trailblazing heart.
The swampy marshes
Of your arm pits
Moist with reminders –
That ash and dust
You might be, but
Forever of the Earth.

Your spine
An ancient ridgeline
A long, narrow range of hills –
That ebb and wane,
Many moons
In many phases
Determining the variety
Of your courage – your
Every, single prayer
Will be answered
You’re you own God
You just don’t know it, yet.