Wrist Deep

IV

(And the stars in the desert spread out
like stones cast into a pond, a handful thrown
by a child, ripples shooting out like light
in every direction, every action and its equal
but opposite. There are ripples in everything;
in the motions we make; ripples; in hearts

we break; ripples; in the quiet valley air we split
as we made our way down Interstate 5
from Seattle, glowing from the light
radiating from the stereo, the console,
you falling intermittently into sleep,
and me too, though I was diving; ripples.

There was a thin weaving road from my house
to yours between the woods then. Remember
how you said you’d become afraid of the trees?
Afraid you’d see bodies hanging from the branches
in the flashes of light? And though I didn’t believe it,
I think now I know there are ghosts in the timber.

Like there are ghosts in everything we touched
together, spirits in the electric signals
of phone calls, pops and hiss, static:
waves of sound making their way from your mouth
across an ocean of rivers and grain to my ear.
When I close my eyes I think I can hear them.

I can still see stars here; can you believe it?
Their voices, like someone saying nothing,
like pulses of a heart beating a rhythm
under flushed lips, like specters of the unsaid,
like ripples sent across a widening pool.)
I scrape another pebble from my shoe.