what words
would you use?
if today were a letter you
penned & I were the mailbox:
how would you have
shaped the story?
Dear baby,
We’ll go one day—
this rocky mountain thunderhead /
fourteen thousand granitite feet /
elemental rebellion; gravity made obsolete.
god, how you would have
loved this.
no unknitting of
our fellowship / trifecta of feral beasts;
you & me & the wilderness—one of us
always leaving & setting
the rest on fire.
Dear baby,
I just couldn’t stay—
& what could we say to that?
almost as as tragic as
eastbound I-70 or
the cigarette we might have split,
breathing deep at dusk
in cordilleran shadow.
god, how could you
miss this?
I won’t guess, I mean;
about the words.
you are a dead language &
I am a living gospel;
cumulonimbus howl over perilous heights.
dear baby,
this place is yours.
roadless expanse on the back
of my hand / or thigh /
my rear view mirror.
& your ghost in the passenger seat;
what you last said washes
out the open window
into Coloradan night
& this time
I don’t ask.