I do love you a little more
tenderly the first few days
after leaving home.
The river here,
sweetheart, is lined with beauty,
those pink flowers that grow first
in spring’s flood-swept banks.
I’m half
here, half back with you. This
and this and this you’d love.
The cottonwoods. The peaks.
Fall
is breathing on the land’s neck.
Another cycle that should give
comfort, and does, but only
in fact. Not
in metaphoric reach. I’ll be home
soon. Not soon, but I’ll be home. I’ll work
to reconcile what I remember of us
with what
we are. The river is the river, despite
its new channel, which made the bridge
both pointless and ruined. Because we need it
it gets rebuilt every year.