Getting Your Rocks Off
By Melvin Dixon
Reading clouds beyond the road
I calculate our distance, survey
the space between our clothes
where rising curves and mountain
tug for air, touch, release.
You drive to the hairpin slope,
hesitate, turn up and in. We ride
on every naked fear you have
and discover that men like us
are not all granite, shale,
deceptive quartz, or
glittering layers of mica.
From here you see the whole world
differently: brownskin,
tufts of black grass.
And many times I have given myself
to summits like these.
Ride in, ride high.
Ride until the clouds break.
You will learn to read rain. You will
follow the white gravel it leaves.
Notes:
This poem was previously published in Love’s Instruments (Tia Chucha Press, 1995) and is part of the portfolio “Melvin Dixon: I’ll Be Somewhere Listening for My Name.” © Melvin Dixon and used with permission of the author’s estate. You can read the rest of the portfolio in the April 2024 issue.
Source:
Poetry
(April 2024)