there's a dale as you're entering
El Paso County where my fingers
feel heavy and my arms take on a
distant memory, a spirit dug into
the highway that radiates the way
the land does in Mailuu-Suu or Sellafield
because in this valley the rocks are coquelicot
and the trees gasp from snowy outcrops
in a tender, pleading kind of way--
so much so that I want to reach out
and thread through their weeds--a
demand so visceral that I feel the
pine brush on my palms and the
bark scrape skin from my forearms
but
then

the valley opens with it's shaved hills
and pulls back in the rear view mirrors
where its memories don't reach.