Poetry

Look over there.
The sea has not yet appeared
though we’ve been driving for two hours, 
though its hot and humid air closes in on us, 
though our clothes cling to our skin.

Her wool sweater is the color of a frozen lake.
I’ve seen it before. Her wearing it, shelving
books about volcanoes at the Seattle Public Library.

Picking out a wreath at Clancy’s 
in the brisk elbows of light
I smell mountains you love

It is their idea to peruse the maps—
the cuff of their sweater, rocktrumpet

pink, not warm from Denver’s summer-acting 
winter, but my wrist chaffing against theirs.

Sun at rest on the mountain faces—

I see it from my window seat,
the mountain rippling under wing,
my dad beside me 
recalling a double-decker freeway I drew
in charcoal when I was six
after it collapsed a few blocks away
in the great quake

For the first year, living off the heat of sagebrush, these 
were the things that kept us going: our faces as they are 
or were, hog black and shining, turned to 
bask in the slough of May crisp moonlight

Tell me, good small insignificant day
is it time 
for my selves to learn to live with one another

Bi poly pan, is how a friend in Philosophy
described me to me. I relay this as we watch late night
in bed on your laptop. (The host unwinding a joke
about loosening the lid on the stuck-fast jar 
of the spicy pickles of commitment.)

of your face onto the polished 
           floor. It’s been too long since 
                     you stammered in disbelief
                                 at the photograph of a human shadow