Still
A poem
I am still waiting
for the last of you
to empty
So I can tell the story whole
without collapsing
or nostalgia,
just clean detail
as a welder knows each spark.
I will recite indifferently
the crescent gold under which we hiked alight
the cotton white obscuring your smile on Sundays
your hand barely echoing
the small of my back in the store
A kindled fire you fed
as you cooked for us –
How many types of gold
sprayed through the mountain
pines did I point out to you
Until you began seeing them first
and each day,
more autumn doused us blind
until the drive you pulled over
because we couldn’t stand the beauty
moving past
any longer —
we had to walk in it
slowly letting it absorb into us.
I ordered prints of the spot you found,
they were to be your Christmas present;
When they arrived, I threw them
behind the chair in the corner,
waiting to look at them
And feel nothing;
I bump up against them now
vacuuming the gathered dust.
