Topography

The land is a crick in the neck. An orange grove burns

and it’s sour when you burp. Whose voice is that?

There’s a fable. There’s a key. Every Ramadan,

the artery suffers first. A diet of heavy lamb

and checkpoint papers. Indigestion like a nightmare.

The Taurus sun burns your forehead. I mean the land.

The land looks white on the MRI images:

you call your grandfather. He’s been finding the land

in his stool. His body contours the mattress like a coffin.

His hand trembles. When he drinks the land,

the urine comes out rose-colored.

The land sears the esophagus. No more lemons,

the doctor says. Two pillows at least. In July,

you lived inside your grandfather like a settlement.

You ate currant sorbet from the same cup.

Did you inherit the land in your arthritic wrist?

It makes knitting hell. On the telephone,

your grandfather tells you the land is coating his eyes.

He tells you it is worth being alive just to see that blue.

He dies and they harness his body to the dirt.

He dies and the sun is out all week.