Michael McClure


Mexico Seen from the Moving Car 
By Michael McClure b. 1932 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
makes 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.