don't sit there they said
don't sit on the broken chair

don't wear the burning boots
they said don't wear the burning tie

i never should have sat on the broken chair
never should have walked in the burning boots
i never should have entered the broken shed
looking for the burning tie

perhaps if i'd been there when the mountains were made
things would've been different

i could've rested on the chair of thorns in the damaged shed
could've repaired my sad insides with the burning hammer

instead i'm on this red rock
and there's a fingernail on one of my fingers
that i've never trimmed
that i've let grow long as my arm
i reach up
cut out a section of sky
wrap it round me like a cloak

soon the cloak grows dark
is woven with stars
i can feel satellites beaming
sports channels across my back

i tilt my head
hear the six o'clock news
hear that i've replaced
my teeth with scree from the mountainside
my feet with drive-in movies
that i wear the burning belt
the broken shoulderblades
imagine i'm a monk
copying out
the names for bread
the care and cleaning instructions for
the snappy DNA tie
my mother gave me
and that goes with
the chromosomal suit
that was my father's

cut to a picture of me swimming
in my sad skin
the burning boots round my neck
the broken chair between my teeth
it seems like i'm dragging
the hammer of thorns in my one long finger

really i feel like a cloud in my cloak of sky
the kind of cloud that collects
above a mountaintop
obscuring the peak and the little men
just barely visible
planting their flag like a pricetag in the burning
boots of their dreams

get me my hammer
i think it's time for a slice