I read that The Colorado River
is pinned down like a snake
used to be that
(before the one-armed-man was king)[1]

the feet of the river
would pick up and move
across the Sonoran dessert
they’d trample laundry lines

and capitalist enterprise
now the snake is still
breathes still it is captive
under 15 concrete collars

the next time it sheds its skin
is geologic time. beyond generational
in geological time the flooding
of the Glen Canyon is a frame

skip, but a ski boat’s wake is forever.
a vast inland sea, even
castles in the sky need moats.
impenetrable as the air

the whole shebang un-erodes,
it becomes nothing
squeezed between ghosts
and immaculate parking lots