It’s true I was in love: with the roads,
with the dry river-beds and the canyons,
Joshua trees, mountains, sky, woods, snowline.
And you. We ran away together. Years ago.
It’s true long after I’d look at your name
in secret, its winged calligraphy of wind,
smoke riding the air I dissolved in,
vanishing into the dark signature of your hair.
It’s true I fucked you with my blood.
It’s true later your name was a thought
that ran out. With you I was like you
without plan, without blueprint.
Like the cactus the repetition
of segments of itself, over and over.
I hate maps you said, and went off
into the desert expecting me to follow.
You would have taken me to Spider Mother’s House
and filled me with your version of yourself.
You would have kept me in a room below the earth
and wrapped me in your silk till I was clean,
divided in departments of myself. It’s true,
I was five parts hot air and no water
in the empty space between the slices of bread.
It was your darkness I was in love with.
Then when I came back I was mad, dumb,
lovesick, still drowning in the dry waterless air
of Leah’s country. Now I’m myself
right side up there’s even less to say about it.
We are what the rain sees, never
where we are but somewhere yesterday,
some other place we’re on the way to,
These events are put together backwards
from hints, shreds of evidence and hearsay,
restricted information, bias measured out
into the tight little shoes of language.
And it’s too late to learn anything from them.
So there’s an end to the affair.
Don’t write. It’s true this silence lasts
until we die. Let’s not be friends.