I found this card in ruins
of a tourist trap, above a volcano.
The air reeks of sulfur, but the view–
storm-gray rocks and lava trails
to violent sea–magnificent desolation.
What year this is, I cannot say,
those readouts have burned out long ago.
Once I charted the eons
by light pollution or the ice caps
but now I am content to leap
like a child trusting his father will catch him.
When will this find you? The day of your birth?
Double feature at the drive in? The night we watched
bombs shed the night’s skin? The fall
day when rain finally stopped and you said
this is no way to live? You were right,
or will be. The water’s edge tints red.
An algal bloom or some chemical
morass. Rocks melt in the silence.
I will investigate. Yours.
—
Israel Wasserstein received his MFA from the University of New Mexico and currently teaches at Washburn University. His first collection of poetry, This Ecstasy They Call Damnation, is forthcoming from Woodley Press.
200 New Mexico Poems 