Mud day

Thrust outdoors into the somber metallic dawn whose grey washcloth
dripping with fog covers my exposed face and outer extremities, slips into
folded crevasses, as in the crook of an ivory neck, exuding an aroma of must
flooding pores make a body all the more aware of vulnerabilities,
small against the vast backdrop erasing evidence of the transference between strata
and stratosphere.

One leaden foot lurches forward despite the denial of movement on raised skin,
my hair collects the dancing beads and leaves my cheeks ruby
in the shameful way that I have seen how my hair stays grey instead of brown when wet,
and yet no time has (a) past...

the mists persist in making all clouds disperse
at our feet collecting weight on lashed eyes dropping diamonds between the sharp tan blades
repelling the chance for new life, making the bed of earth condensed to gather all the necessary elements for the making of a Mud day.

Painting by Frederic Edwin Church [Public domain], c. 1869-70 via Wikimedia Commons.