Jake Leonard

my bike’s front wheel 
    sinks into sluff

I don’t remember how I fall

limestone gravel pierces my palm

crystal flecks scrape 
    from stone to flesh

I sleep at the foot of the falls
slip in the morning
on the mist-soaked moss

slender piece of slate 
vertical in the dirt 
digs deep into my hand

I catch the white glint 
of sinew or bone 
then blood fills the hole 

spills over my cupped hand
red drops dot dead leaves
my body’s false border broken 

some of me soaks into soil
reaches for the bloodroot’s rhizome 
and burrows towards subterranean blue