Thirteen

We will kneel down in the reeds beside the water
We will float two paper boats down slowly in
The river spiderwebs the map like breaking glass like here might shatter
Send us scattering like seeds into the wind
From the cattails 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