Colorado Song (Previously My Colorado)

the driver's side
of a jade green convertible:
the latticed prairie
(starillions of yellow flowers
and dusty shrubs)
greeting a sky
woven of white and

the boundless blue of your eyes.

a sun flower
sage brush spray, laced
with curdled perfumes:
cow shit, dead skunk, and
the warm, aching stench
of your cologne
seeping from Jade's left seat—

you sat here only just days ago.

the mess of stone
and chasm, of aspen and pine;
powdered pieces of
your twirly, chaotic stardust
are growing mountains.
The land lifting out of plains
is a song you taught me and

I still know it all by heart.

Why on Earth

did you leave Tucson?
they’ll ask,
and I usually say
it was just time.

Really, though,
it’s just a long story
I save for those who
care to understand.
You see, I had to

ditch that bright, beautiful spot,
where cactus-dirt crept between my bare toes,
every grain of rock whispering of eons;
eons we humans will never have.

Then one day,
Once upon a rock,
someone
told me that we do.
Have eons, I mean.

One day,
we’ll crumble down, too,
sand sifting off the stone,
we go so damn quick
back to the rock.

Remember that one scorcher in May
when we spread ashes on Mount Wasson,
when we returned you to the rock?
Some dust blew across the city to the Catalinas.

To Pima Canyon,
where, even now,
you sing of coulee and rock:
the wind flaring up yellow
behind the elms, your song.

It’s quite a story you tell.
Perhaps you can see
why, when they ask,
I usually just say that
it was time.

Breath

Numb fingers unclip the rain fly
In the dull cold of sunrise,
Wave it into the horizon like
A desert flag, sending crystals
Of frost glittering into
The pink and purple sky—
Our mixed breath, condensed
And frozen, some kind of
Small gift to the arid soil,
Some kind of temporary jewelry
Worn briefly by a prickly pear,
And then forgotten.