Thirteen - La Dispute

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 in 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