Wanderlust  

call it wanderlust:
me, Lewis & Clarke,
ampersands important,
western frontier, all
that jazz,
filled up and resting full,
seated at the foot of a stump.

beetles swarm;
I wear a wig of horseflies
and smell of muskeg.

you’ll never know
the dried lakebed that exists,
flaking earth concentric
around the Carroll rabbit
hole seduction
of your navel.

           I peek inside
           and hear you
           say eat me.
           the playing cards marching in echoes.

--but this moment is
as sexual as electrostatic
as photographic
as educational.
Besides, I
should say.

           I am convinced           
           that a protective grizzly dens
           with her cubs
           in your vagina.
           the insides of your
           thighs are stone
           and the valley in
           between leads
           to spelunking, remembrances
           of birth and
           that old grizzly.
           she’s a protective one,
           that one.

           and it’s not that I’m scared of her.

           I’m terrified.

           lichen hangs in drapes
           and I toss pebbles
           at your knees.

           the army ants
           clambering up the
           peat moss
           Gulliver-threading
           your elbows to lushness
           anchor you to the world;
           me to you.

           a dream of the first
           sight of dewy spiderwebs
           and the exaggerated
           bigness of its resident.

           badgers live in your nostrils.
           your exhalations are
           Old Faithful, hot and wet
           regular where I shower
           in the springs of your mouth.

call it wanderlust:
me, Lewis & Clarke,
ampersands important;
you, the whole Rockies
of my United States,
where I hoof it,
endlessly lost,
and,
endlessly,
can call it home.

© 2006 Michael Appleby