Life in the Cinnabar Mines

(diminishing form #27)

There is a kind of moisture that films the soapy red vein
and we follow it and the way it smells
deeper and deeper and deeper
into the sides of these mountains
on our hands and on our knees.

Quicksilver, they call it,
but only after we have
pulled it bleeding rust-colored poison
out of the hole that we have made.

And fire, then,
and the crushing
weight of burning memories.

Glass flasks fill quickly
with the heavy sweat of stones.

And, still, it flows around our stupid fingers.