The snow is light
but enough for my sinuses to tighten
gravel slips beneath me as the dog pulls into snakeweed
for 3 years
stripping my rubber boots on the same walk
but I am always different.
William is on my mind
haven’t cried like that since Tryon
since hanging my head off red fox bridge
and watching my tears poke the creek
crawdads watched them ripple.
We reach Corazon
I am holding the hand of the person I love
I love so many, but not like him
I press my cheek into his arm, something big
in me
says, “Thank you.”
The air pushes around us
cold and thick like water
it washes sediment from our skin
sad, foreign, clingy sediment
and puts it along the mountain somewhere
as alluvium that we later discover to be a placer deposit
and prospect gems from its ore.
Through the barbwire gap we arrive
to the not-really path
ducking under Juniper limbs,
snapping dried overhangs, so many
cacti species in one place
lichen sewed to rocks
bloodless arroyo arteries
coyote remains, auburn and seedy;
we just intend to go North
and slow dance with the terrain.
I see the propane tank
and stucco covered cinder blocks
we’re home but do not stop there
instead winding along the drive way
marked by neatly placed rocks, aloe leaves
and an occasional weak wooden fence
the dog stops
tired, staring into the distance
sandy brown tinged green
dark olive, sage greens
rocks everywhere, untouched
branches scattering, suddenly
antlers, blackest eyes
face marked like swallowtail wings
gaelic, dream-like
living stillness
like the space between stars
like suddenly remembering William’s laugh
like the silence that hangs
on the thread between you and your lover’s eyes
silence that lets everything collapse
in and around you, collapse
so when something big comes
to say,
”Thank you,”
you are still enough
to hear it.