My lips are chapped;
The winds were high on the mountain.

The evidence of the climb smacks in the dryness and hunches in the body:
Curled in the arches of the feet, in the biceps;
roped across the shoulder blades;
crisscrossing the palms of the hands and the flanks, stippling the spine.

I sit for a long time afterward
Shivering in the car with the heat streaking the windshield.
I just sit
Staring at the windex smears where I recently tried to clean the windows-down grime of the summer.
I don’t remember how to get to your house -
The climb stripped your address from me
Like it stripped everything.

I experiment with the emergency release on my ankle
As the song Birds by Dominique Fils-Aime rises like smoke from the bottom of the car.

They find me in the morning in my front seat,
Completely flat from a slow leak in the pressure valve,
And gently cradle my head as they lift,
Out of the car and under a mountain
(Under, now)
Of softness and fragrant sweetness so I can sleep for as long as my deflated body will let me
Before it’s time again for the air compressor,
Time again, as always, to climb.