Infidelity

Arsenic was a dust rock-men could grow used to,
their mettle processing the poison, depositing it
in crevices and coeloms. It did not produce the same
harm in them as it did in fireworks and bark-women—
realgar was mined to color clothing and explosions.

Roots slitting into the cave seemed to exorcise
toxins, sucking them, quelling their pollution. And yet—
though the trees that grew from bad earth
towered over the others, they were flushed by stone.
Pressed hard against rock, their insides reddened.

Quiet were women who grew with roots. Seeming
to be stable, cave walls moved when the ground shook
or when new plants cracked them. It was rare to find
flora that clambered like tunnels through mountains.
Stone-men were addicted to dust, that subtle poison.