You told me to go

among the mountains

so that when I

did, I saw your

voice, heard your

body, felt the turn

of your head

 

Not in the

crescendo wind, on the

statue outcrops, or

through the tree-dance

but rather across the

burn-scape, in the

sapling webs, beneath the

trail muck

 

              I was familiar

              with the act of

              impression without

              wanting to

              be seen

 

Yes, I use these tricks

to talk to people

underwriting them with a

quiet hope that such

febrility is human and

not mine

 

So would you tell her

that when she whispered

into the space above

my chest I could

recall only the imagined

lash of her tongue for my

having dared to editorialize

the circumstances

 

Would you tell her

that yesterday a rockslide

took some and buried them

soft addenda to the

glacial valley

 

              I recognized at once

              the manner of

              brutality laced with

              a serious decency

              as hers