Thirteen

We will kneel down in the reeds beside the water We will float two paper boats down slowly in The river spider webs the map like breaking glass like here might shatter Send us scattering like seeds into the wind From the coattails bursting, slamming on our skin As we chase our vessels racing toward the lake, I start to shake When you wade down ankles bare now to go swim And this is what I do now, every day Travel back and forwards either way There's a village for us somewhere Northern Michigan With a dirt road leading to a covered bridge Where earlier we'd scurried off To check the cart, the horse had drawn For fuses and more powder for the Fourth And in the nighttime when the first of them is lit We will sneak back there in darkness just to kiss And I'll panic at your image As the flashes split the rafter gaps Terrified you'll see my open eyelids And this is what I do now, every night Try to somehow catch you in the light When summer goes the leaves shift tone then float As the canopy reverts to branch and bone Downward tumbling inadvertently I stumble and you steady me I twirl you one quick circle, make your ankles show Then we laugh so hard we can no longer stand And you look me in the eyes and take my hands On the forest floor, it's warmer Than my bed has ever been before Curled up tight together like an ampersand This is what I do now all alone Count the many things that make you home And when the snow falls, we will wrap ourselves in furs Lie beside the stove and stoke the fire Make the embers roar a little more Snowdrifts up the cabin door You glow, and we speak slowly, growing tired So let the winter freeze each corner of the earth Bury everything I've had in frozen dirt If I could travel back in time and find you Follow always right behind you I'd live in any age and start from birth Because this is what it is that pulls me through That you belong to me and I to you