Anacreon’s Place

gingerly dangling the thermometer over
the cliff to measure the frigid airs spilling
from the earth’s bowels, he realizes he
cannot hit rock bottom because there
is no bottom to hit, least of all his,
here, at the edge of all that matters,
nothing, an aurora blinking in the
shape of a wedding ring he does
not notice in the stratosphere
above him.

He is married to
ice particles floating
upward, scurrying in sympathy
to the volcanic miasma
beneath the ebon
surfaces of rising gases
several kilometers below
the ice shelf.

fragments tantalize
moss up the sheer wall,
wounding granite cleft a thousand
epicycles into Ptolemy’s eyestrain
at trying to figure out the
nuance of gophering
infobytes between
stars singing sugar tones
before the quasar shriek
of galaxyquake,
membranes fracture
my headspin and I
am now still on the surface
of the waters that
have lapped at my consciousness
since before I pushed out
from between Isis’ legs.