ISSUE: Summer 2002
for Donna de la Perrière
Each step
jiggles green hedges.
Violet, blue
wind covers
river light, birches.
Textures wash
our bodies,
which rise:
night inside roots,
gold on a bright
red oak—
inside you,
I am patience,
a surge of heat
on a horse’s back,
a salmon climbing
a tight stream.
Give me the round
sky to suck.
Slick-mossed roots
cup a rain
pool: nurturing,
your throat
holds cadences,
shadows, song.