AT THE TOP

weary slip of morrow's sun

spreads pale light over rolling hills like butter over toast

sixteen i stand atop the mountain peak

with sunlight jelly in my mouth,

the breeze in my scalp and

the earth swelling underneath my nails;

i'm nameless, stupefied, enriched and stripped down;

i'm tall and i'm little, i'm bright as the sun-caught clouds and dark as the rain-saturated

dirt and soil, brimming with bacteria and

salt.

i ran here to the top and past the aching pines and shivering brambles,

new of green in this spring;

i tripped over the million-year old rock

in the path and laughed into the newborn

air;

i lost my name in the shape of the wind

and broke my worth in half over my knee

like the dry branch i used as a

walking stick from the start--

sixteen, i stand atop the mountain peak,

chewing on what might be cheek or gum,

gnashing flesh between my teeth and

******* blood;

it is light inside my brain and marrow,

instinct in my chest which makes the

muscle beat inside;

i am sixteen and nameless, formless, stupid

and an animal; i am sixteen and atop the mountain peak

i am apart from what is not me

and swallowing, hungrily, all which should and could ever be my pieces.

behind me awaits the Future,

stark against the trees in all its black looming, tapping angrily

its heeled foot against the bleached deer bones;

here it might call me with disdain,

scowling at the antler by its toe, and yell for me by my name--

and then i won't answer, not yet,

sixteen forever on a mountain peak,

sixteen for however long the wind blows

and the sun spills light over the meadow;

sixteen for as long as i live;

sixteen for as long as the tapping foot taps;

sixteen for forever,

then sixteen never again.

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