Shepherd Hot Spring
The wind nips at my breasts.
Stones set long ago by shepherds' hands
cage in this hot water that flows
from the gut of a smoldering caldera.
I can smell their hands - brown leather,
the sweat hidden under sheep's wool,
and sage -
running their hands through the sage that
grows like banshee screams all around this spring.
I look up at the great white mountain teeth
and am swallowed up to the sky's belly.
The wind bites me again and I sink
into water heated by milleniums of plates
that slide against each other in the night.
My feet pinken and I burn from the inside out.
Histamines swarm to the skin and I scratch
as evolution has taught me.
