to visit the bed of an old lover.

What do I tell her—Do I fill her head

with secrets, or brush the truth like dander

from my hair? There is no balm in Gilead,

this is not manna, nor gossamer flakes

from desiccated saints whose frozen ash

melts on my tongue– it is the Cascade’s

autumn wind blowing through Snoqualmie pass,

shaking the white crowns from the evergreen.

On the outskirts of Moses Lake, a crow

skims their broken tips– like an augur’s dream

scattered by daylight on the open road,

it wings irrespective of my vision,

angling lightly over Washington.