The Desire to Be Subterranean

I dig for medicine

ink blind in the dirt, no news

past the next elbow of night,

scooped hands carving a husk for

incomplete skin. I’ve

bent there rooting under

daylight’s million feet,

breath rebounding from the

mudpack in a second heat, every

corridor a vein map drawn to

build out the body, tap a

witnessing pulse and beg

this clay tell me my shape,

let me know and be known by a

lower mother that broods me

into form and finish me

that I may recognize my earth.