Mexico Seen from the Moving Car by Michael McClure

Mexico Seen from the Moving Car
by Michael McClure

THERE ARE HILLS LIKE SHARKFINS
                             and clods of mud.
The mind drifts through
in the shape of a museum,
in the guise of a museum
dreaming dead friends:
Jim, Tom, Emmet, Bill.
—Like billboards their huge faces droop
and stretch on the walls,
on the walls of the cliffs out there,
where trees with white trunks
          make plumes on rock ridges.

My mind is fingers holding a pen.

Trees with white trunks
          make plumes on rock ridges.
Rivers of sand are memories.
Memories make movies
          on the dust of the desert.
Hawks with pale bellies
          perch on the cactus,
their bodies are portholes
          to other dimensions.

This might go on forever.

I am a snake and a tiptoe feather
at opposite ends of the scales
as they balance themselves
against each other.
This might go on forever.

PHOTO: Santa Catarina, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, by David Liceaga on Unsplash