Roots

I’ve come to lie on the basalt plain
where the earth is trying to heal itself,

to peer down a rift in the mantle
when the pain gets white, keep looking

until my chest blisters – right down
where a roiling valve beats like a heart

and my own heart bubbles.
The threads of my dress

spit and snarl. I soothe them.
I calm sun flares, plasma storms.

And on the cloth of fire I draw vines.
They shoot out from my hollows –

leaves large as hands
that stroke the wound of my land.