On Being Mud

By Stoel Burrowes

Stick in the mud that grows
Thirsty
Driving a stake into this un–kilned clay
taking the form of mud
Thrown
to sleep all day and then dance at sundown
there is a wetness and a dryness and I need both

but this bulletproof shell leaks
time
What are you keeping out
or in
to sleep only part of each day and let the heat of the sun
bake and draw out the moistened confusion that sleep
leaves in your eyes
thick but fragile

Now driving, now fatigue
is spreading into my hands
I have never been there like this
In this bakeble form this breakable form

Or is this the same feeling, now
Which came first
Thirst or breath
just now
where the indivisible lays
so eventful over memory

So no line is found
between
except blurred in stories
requisite stories, repeated
again
in sermons and pleadings
on ruled fabric
wrapping wetlands
woven from dirt and light