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Description
Sparse trees clustered along the shoreline
desperate for even so meager a water source.
Michigan would call the Truckee creek.
Two feet and sharp rocks at its deepest
only inches where we let our bare feet dangle.
The water icy and I felt like diving in.

(I knew a man who did: quadriplegic now,
but he got off the drugs.)

I wanted to twirl along the shore
to that bright Irish reel that sounded like dancing.
Arms spread out, feet frozen, and laughing.
You kept hold, tethered me to the rocks
leaving trails of demanding kisses up my arm.
I’d meant for the river to bring us back again
to the dim shaded groves and the towering trees.

But I could still taste dust.

Duncan woods, when I thought I loved you.
The doe eyed student, hanging on every cliché,
fragile admirer at your feet.
I accepted slices of apple
from patronizing fingers. A young seventeen.
Back in paradise, we would perch on mossy logs.
Naïve, uprooted, it was just like love to me.

The desert knew better.

Tiny volcanoes spewing red ants,
quick gray lizards, the brittle sagebrush everywhere.
It grows without water or support.
Finding old roots, I grew without you,
fed by older knowledge. I too was battle born.
The Truckee River like a barely kept promise
giving just enough water for us to survive.

Women still stand on bridges

throw away their wedding rings.
I let the stone you gave me
slip from between my fingers.
I slipped between your fingers.

Dove.

(It hurt like hell but I got off the drugs)