Descent into a Valley Descending to bathe ourselves in sacred streams, We found the track too narrow, our steps unsure. We came to be cleansed of colored-paper dreams And the fingers of our fathers and our mothers, But found our former bodies warped into others, No longer what we were, decaying, and impure. The valley is stripped bare and piled with stones: You must not see us—you must not wash yourselves. Turn back before the water pulps your bones, Before tar hooves rupture and feathers grow. Transfigured, we must watch you from below; The roads are closed to monsters—we cannot flee ourselves. MATTHEW PALATNIK
17
