Two poems by CJ Giroux

DREAMING THE SALT MINES, DETROIT

Beams crisscross above, around Del Rey, Zug Island.

Stretching, connecting,

shadows build steeples, spires, ziggurats.

Votives to Vulcan,

refineries’ blue flames leap to,

lick at starless skies, yellow smoke;

paint peels from storage silos.

I imagine these giant headstones

succumbing to ice, snow,

sinking, settling, askew—

pressure propelling tremors

toward miners

who wade through salt caverns

among grey steel, exposed wires, burros’ bones.

Wearing tags like holy medals,

these men scrape at surroundings,

invoke St. Barbara,

her tower inverted, pushed into earth.

Seeking windows, lightning-streaked sky,

they genuflect in the blue-white glow

of crystal chambers, eternal winter.

STRANDED

I watch the coywolf

maneuver splinters of ice

stacked like pick-up sticks.

Under slate skies, he cries,

protests the thaw;

paces along currents;

eyes orange Coast Guard cutters.

Pawprints spread, sink

as temperatures climb,

as the shore-bound

study the horizon,

blue of late season snow.

Man, beast, the city’s

bronze fist quake

in crystalline air,

dream of parched fields.

A lifelong resident of Michigan, CJ Giroux is the author of the chapbook Destination, Michigan, and teaches English at the college level.