the echo i chase sounds from the siren which bends my ear.
summer clouds in springtime plume while soft silt bunches on the riverbed.
the shadow in the mirror looks like what i once knew but
from around the bend and above the break,
i hear her without distance.
like a hornets kiss on the back of my neck,
throbbing like a geysers sulfur surface,
welted like a rolling hillside,
i cannot ignore such persistence.
beauty and the burden knowing;

knowing she is a burden.
knowing she will change,
become something i've not known for others,
and unfold her beauty
in ways i'll not be blessed to know.

she remains that echo of thunder deep in the ravine,
she remains the shadows in the mirror i cannot shine upon.