Leaving

          Four o’clock this morning there was a call.

          You talked Indian, so it was probably her mother.

          It was. Something not too drastic, tone of voice,

          no deaths or car wrecks. But something. I was

          out of the sheets, unwrapped from the blankets,

          fighting to stay in sleep. Slipped in and out of your

          voice your voice on the line.

          You came back to me. Lit cigarette blurred in the dark.

          All lights off but that. Laid

          down next to me, empty, these final hours

          before my leaving.

          Your sister was running away from her boyfriend and

          was stranded in Calgary, Alberta. Needed money

          and comfort for the long return back home.

          I dreamed of a Canadian plain, and warm arms around me,

          the soft skin of the body’s landscape. And I dreamed

          of bear, and a thousand mile escape homeward.