Putrefied

Again, this poem is part of a sequence I am writing about the life that goes on beneath our feet, the poetry of those things underground.

Putrefied

I want to live deeply without conversation. 
I want to find kinship with garlic and onions
--minerals, carrots, potatoes and beets--

anything buried or pushed into the ground. 
I want to paint the truth a phosphorescent
green and bury it beneath my house today.

I want only to dig with my eyes closed--
to finger myself through the churches and cafes.
I am salt and potassium, phosphorous, dirt 

sprung up from the dirt. I want what the worm
and the seed know--nitrogen, phosphates, termites 
and moisture--bacteria, roots--this fistful of dung. 

© Mark MacDonald 2013