I thought you, fishing a limit,
walking home in chert-dust dark
catching your boot-toe every rut
or so. That log road deeds the creek
to us. It’s alright. I thought it, running
water or wind in the scrub oak.
If widow moon, then dog years, the way
you walk down, your hat set for traveling,
dreaming backward like paper lace
in the same Summer rain.
Hardly a day goes by. Hardly a far field,
feldspar flecked in sandstone
when sparrows fall out of the creek.
I thought you coming home
for a cold mattress and folly
playing feet in the current, eddying
along the clay path between me
and the rumpled painter’s hat you wore.
Not pinebox. The campfire and the map
you wouldn’t stop drawing.