I have walked barefoot
through my life,
shirt torn where I hooked it
on a nail,
felt my spine rip, bones cracking
like jagged lightning piercing
a black sky,
unzipped my skin
and peeled layers
of epidermis
like old wallpaper,
heard in steep canyon walls
the echoes
of vows made by every
well-intentioned spectator
whose life intersected mine.

I have risked my life
for a few kind words
for a fingernail raking my palm
when I touched
a woman's hand
I have smiled before she smiled
apologized
before she would
stood last in line
waited for a humbling grace
told myself that
I am not a fool
to compromise, to yield
heaven's gleam for
an acorn of possibility--
such is vanity.

On the frigid tundra of dreams
I have paused
to set back the moss
to leave no tracks
to carry out
everything I carried in,
to fan the burning bush
without disturbing the smoke,
breathless, my legs aching,
knobby fingers drumming
a forgotten tune upon my knees.
Will you tell me
when you see the promised land?
Don't lead me to it, just point the way
through bonfires of promises
and a smoldering host of maybes.

                                      Terry Bacon