Cairn

Craving
the cracking sound my back makes
when it’s overloaded,
I pile on rocks and rocks
and more rocks.

Carry them as if they were
wings, despite
their utter lack of lift. 

I can fly
strictly because
if I believed in the harm
I am doing to myself,
it would be
impossible. 

I will fall someday.
Perhaps today —

perhaps that burning, shattering moment
is what I’ve lived for
after all I have said to the contrary.

Hope
takes different forms;

sometimes it is shaped like
the cairn a man
is buried under, the one
he carries with him.