I'd forgotten about the last frost
the tv casting a flickering glow on
the opposite wall, I'd been counting
the number of times you'd said ****    (six)
still expecting (hoping) you to take my
hands and blow warm air through
my thumbs--

we left the cows (which had dwindled since I'd last been)
and climbed the rails near the house to get to the roof
it's so dark that it's light out here, I've got some song
by the Randy Rogers Band coming up through my
hair and buzzing on my lips

curse the photographic memory, I see you wobbling on the icy ridges
putting your faith in bolt heads to hold you upright--this stretch of
stars linin' up with your shoulders, your heart is crooked but beats
pretty straight--sometimes the air glistens around you like you're
still cookin' in the sun or maybe you've got some of that anger
still left over from Ashley, (who knows) I don't say a thing.

People say the night is black, but the night is blue. The night is the color of the year, purple quartz, johnny cash's long drawl, the night is your shadow, your laugh, a wily hand briefly tucked in the seam of my thigh where it all runs together, where all the water meets on Coleman land--disenchanted by our differences, scouring skin like shrikes waiting
for an opening, going in for the dive and finding that I am all melted
wax and whimpers--
lying shoulder to shoulder like we first
did up on Skyline,
boy, did I.
Boy, did I?