SISYPHUS IMAGINES HIS FINAL STEP

One more push will end it.  
The pain will fall away and 
I’ll see ordinary stones below me, 

small and clear, as in the falcon’s  
gliding, yellow eye. 

I’ll fill my mouth with the cold sky.  
I’ll be as the gods who shimmered  
when they first climbed out of dust. 

Each day this belief rises up
toward the gods who finger my soul 
with height and weight and hope.

Patricia Nelson has worked with the “Activist” group of poets in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has a new book, Monster Monologues, forthcoming from Fernwood Press in 2024.