Stone Mountain

granite slopes like a dome
like a serving of mashed potatoes
when i walk off comfort food
up the uneven water-worn path.
used fat evaporates
each step made under stubborn pines
each once just the idea of a tree
standing still in a stone crack
when sherman burned this town

i rise on the back of confederacy
where snow hardly falls
and bob, tom, and jeff watch tourists
interbreed and shoot off lasers,
their rock hard resolve
broken not by the elements
but by the blood of kin folk
freshened with bayonets
and crushed by memory into bright iron soil

i wipe oil from my forehead
as a way to exhale
as a way to climb above these plains
so stated in phrases of sharp gasps
rising always rising
to the gondola's final stop
where school kids and breathless riders
eat hot dogs and take photos
framed by the frayed southern skyline.