How can we float along in the coal dust
ground into the streams that branch
like feathers across your palms and run
through the caverns set below your eyes
and the valleys of your brow as if it were
a speeding train heading toward the river
barges, behemoths bound for green pastures
and rolling golden fields—their wheat
heads bowed in a majestic breeze, praying
they grow tall and strong, and that the harvest
blade is quick, sharp as a snap of light
caught on a filament—a bright canary yellow
burning away the eons with a song 
as it sheds the hell from which it sprang
like a skin.