Lithe Hills

Richard King Perkins II

I’ve colonized your outer planets
deliberately

with grand expressions
and dark portals of insanity.

Mercifully, April prays uncontained
as the sun falls distinctly

in tremulous waves below the horizon
and your discrete aspects are revealed;

lithe hills of ebony, chiseled wings,
and weeping telescopes of imperfection.

You were the dirty child
wandering the boneyards of dead streets,

a shredded web of emptiness
generating the machinery of thought,

clutching fractions
as if they were flyaway moons

and given all that we’ve been
how can you say you’ll never cavort again

gathering figs around
this silent exultation of earth.