SLIP SLIDING

“Slip sliding away.  Slip sliding away.  You know you’re near your destination even more, you’re slip sliding away.”  —Paul Simon

I slip down
your spine
and thighs
and back into
my silk shirt,
embroidered
with your sweat
and tear stained with my famine.

Life woes.

I climb heavy stairs,
open silent screen doors,
and leave tire marks
in dirt-paved driveways.
I go nowhere,
but I’m with myself
and the AM radio.

I learn to repair
the broken muffler
and soothe the baby’s colic.
The mountains tell larger stories.

I climbed to the summit
of Mount Ogden
the summer I turned fifteen.
My younger sister slashed her hand open
on a pre-formed rock slide
and we wound a red bandanna
tight
that matched her gushing cut.
She was brave
for being so doe-eyed.
She still eats
with her left hand,
which makes for a conflict at
the Thanksgiving seating arrangement.

Then I remember,
I was thinking of you
and the way you sound in the dark.
The way your words
move down me
and your pupils dilate
when you talk about
“the end of days”
or ask, “What are you thinking?”

I have roots
in these shadows
cast by autumn colors.
Folding origami and learning
to write haikus
are foreign compared
to the smell of your skin
at 2 a.m.