The Cold Wind Blowing in Dark Woods

I’ve led a furious life, changing
wives in the midst of kindness,
in the midst of heat. The Phoenix
desert did me no good—the deep
canals seeped into my imagination,
I wanted to travel downriver, beyond
The dried rocks that used to hold white
rapids. When I try to explain this confused
past to friends who haven’t seen me
in years, I remind them first
of the desert acres where I grew
large as a fist punching the dry air—

One day I was with a woman
at the park—there was a fake
lake filled with duck feathers
and dirty water. For the night,
she would betray me
before coming back
to save my life. Or was it
the other way around? For she was
as a still night in the deep
reaches of Sharp Mountain,
when all the black birch boughs
speak another language—

and I understand the words
She spoke the first time
We talked standing next to a Blue Palo
Verde tree, the 737’s thundering
overhead, floating fast to earth.
I stayed with her so that I could
look through the 50 year old
windows of my dutch-farmhouse
home, now, waiting for my children
to return from school—
the weather has turned again
and my thoughts wander to the last
days of winter, the morning glory seeds I’ve
saved to spread in the backyard,
along the fence where my property ends.