What Map We Make of the Mountain
faultline | failure | to sketch an image | exactly as it is | now: a flattened cone | a line
impossible | to follow what do we know | of its flow / flaw: weaken : to mark upon | i
digress — here is what we can relay | from above where the clouds dust | my jacket when
i touch | myself my fingers come away | wet i grind my fingerprints | off with wind there is
direction :: a kind of trail / water | gouging its own course ( i can’t stop sweating through my
shirts ) when drops touch the morning earth — they steam ; my face/body feels hot | the fire
tearing through the air just like | the radiator in this room/city we can’t control ? towering too
high to fall | this fall the shower has grown | mold on the ceiling | billowing burgundy patterns
| unseen under someone’s floor . unfurling to be : entire | this suggests ? i continue | with what
remains | voices climb / pitch untrained | my shirts know nothing | of origin | material
“ home ” knows not | of the water except | it returns to them their state | to their shape
i \ mean this stretched out mass | to be wrung | we can return | respite | hear each other
through | the walls : we can respond to — return what we’ve touched | respite | in the ruptures
where — have ? i :: failed
my self
open
Mary Rose Manspeaker was born and raised in West Virginia. They are the author of the chapbook Small, Black Box (Bottlecap Features) and the microchap Context Collapse (Ghost City Press). They have received support from the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference and Brooklyn Poets, and their recent work appears in Poetry Northwest, TYPO, Gordon Square Review, and elsewhere.
Instagram – @maryrmanspeaker
