I have walked on sunken roads in Lake Mead,
        eaten lunch in a submerged tree,
        stared at a horizon of floating cliffs,
        water no mirage in this desert. 

        Glen Canyon Dam killed Glen Canyon,
        spawned Lake Powell (no son of him who loved
        rushing river rapids) just as Hoover Dam,
        World's Great Wonder, spawned Lake Mead:

        deformed from conception, ill-begotten
        children born with thalidomide bays,
        blue stumps seeming flat and shallow
        as mercury shimmering on hot red sand;

        yet reservoirs deviant, deep and corrupt,
        sludge on bottom, scum on top: Glen Canyon,
        choked by your stunted stillborn child--
        what foul bag of waters burst forth here.

        I have anchored at a tombstone in Lake Powell,
        held a wake in a sixty horsepower whine,
        seen black oil wash sandstone coffin walls
        at Wahweap Marina in this desert.

        My hand crumbles wet sandstone; red grains
        trickle to a watery mound
        sixty feet under.