A Kentucky Goodbye

―1981

By the time I saw you

in skirts of jasmine

and sweaters of dandelion,

it was almost too late.

We were in college

rounding a hill to summer,

taking a gentle slope down.

Then on a day by a pond

we watched dragonflies hover,

measuring distances―shore to horizon,

reed to water lily, sunlit rock

to wisp of brown hair.

Something was being calculated

beginning to end.

We talked, tossed rocks,

braved mosquitoes

fine as newsprint

on the way to the car.

After driving to your apartment,

we watched Jason Robards in 1000 Clowns

and took angel dust

which made the lights shimmer.

We could smell fruit

off night-blooming trees

and the lavender scarf

of the wind. You told me

you were leaving, as the angel

dust settled like dusk

in the pond behind us,

filling our footsteps, sifting

down strip-mined hills

on grass soft as catsfur, clinging

with this restless glow

we still feel

in the deep hollows and valleys

in the lines of our hands.