Concrete

Robert Evory

My brother says,
when the blackbird is hungry

it is a part of you that is hungry;
and if there are two, part of you is hungry

and part of you isn’t. He says this as we drive to find
the highest point in Ohio. We pass it,

riddled in the roundabout hills of a corn field, unknowing,
into the city that packed the first concrete road (built now

our knowledge is innate).
We see how they vulcanize rubber

into thick blubber skin—
this is what existence is brother says

and pollination, and a nail
that keeps a boat afloat: we give rise

to us: we exist because we are made of other things he says:
we crack and break and reconstruct our… selves:

seven years and we have a new set of cells.

On the drive to Mammoth Cave we talk of time:
our ongoing hope on this side

of the coffin, our journey to heaven or hades, or the name
eternal nothing (if eternal is its name). But we decide talking

of time is a waste (we too are waste)—being
postured upon mountain apex, sucking a sexy nipple,

tunneling our body through earth, or rain singing
are highlights of some personal universe.

The road is part of you that is buried brother says;

the road is part of you that is moving I say.
We encase nuclear waste in concrete radio says:

that will last ten thousand years I say

Uranium-238 has a half-life of four billion brother says.
When I say we

I mean you (and me), and also them, and
those people, us, orator, human, animal, universal

allegiance of those who suffer, that means all of us.
Our death has already happened. When you see

time as linear it is your fault multiple dimensions say (it is not like a road).
plate tectonics says, soon the road will crumble, be swallowed

and then be everywhere: it already is.
We are one with the road, we see the blackbird.