BROWSE Columns
✕
Beyond the treeless sand-brown hills—
new double-story houses, driveways
holding vans and cars, a thick man
working on his lawn, a pit bull snarling
by the gate.
Don’t tell me that, go deeper.
Molten, semi-molten magma, slamming
at the underside of earth to find escape,
and, trapped in ringwoodite, a sea
that never will light up in sun
or trace a path of moonlight on its skin.
No, no—go deeper,
down below the mantle
and the outer core,
go deeper,
find me something burning like a star.
Joyce Schmid’s recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Literary Imagination, New Ohio Review, Antioch Review, The Dark Horse, Poetry Daily, and other journals and anthologies. She lives with her husband of over half a century in Palo Alto, California, USA.
