XV

Opposites did attract

The way I always fell in love in winter

By the time my freckles faded

There was never enough time for us, 

Ripping out pages of days like uprooting flowers for frost

Was there ever a way to see you again?

I watched light find its way to me through the trees; squinting 

The crunched back bones of my arms let fall where they may

Red hands raw in the sun the way I held myself in a fist

A little ways back, 

I remembered when you slipped a stone into my hand

Calling it a keepsake but I knew it was an edifice of what had come

I thought about driving back out there

To where your road led to its deadest end

We’d never retrieve what was sunk in the lake

But it wouldn’t have mattered

No conceit except for the carving upheld

If we wanted to find it, we could

It wouldn’t take us that long to get there 

but we’d have to leave now