the drive down hardscrabble is filled with
the rasp of Jim's feed truck and the heavy
jangle of steel parts in the side compartments.
For a while we don't speak and i lose myself
in the stars, eaten up by Ursa Major, broken down
and condensed, blown out and away--
His headlights wash across the aspens
with their rangy bodies congregated on the
western slopes; spectral and reminiscent of
dancers or other sylphlike beings captured
unannounced.


when I think back on this moment
I realize that's where it all ended
the last moment where for a few
idle seconds, it seemed like
maybe it could work
out.

there's a barely-there eroticism about the
way he touches me, with rough, seasoned
fingers pressing eagerly between the tendons
in my wrist, racing up my shin or gingerly sweeping
the inside of my thigh.
I
used
to feel all the time