For Jay, at Devils Tower, Wyoming
Starlit slumber –
the stillness of your face
the curve of the water jar
tucked into the sand
so as not to spill
– a bit of the river
you carry to sustain you
on your walking path
backwards through the suns and moons,
when you swam inside
your mother,
before you melted
into the world.
You shift position
and the horizon yawns,
a drop of water spills out of your eye.
The air –
that fills the space
between the bright black sky
and your closed, quivering eyelids–
you take in like a lover,
with the rise and fall of your chest,
a cascading hill,
a smooth plain that stretches out
for a lifetime.
[Originally published in Jittering Microscope #7, 1991, though I just added the title to it]
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