two rings


    After work, when my limbs hang heavy like pendulums


    and my feet sink into the earth’s stone foundation,


    you pick me up, pick me out, pick my brain, earnestly


    hoping for a hilly, mountainous hike previously planned.


    And although the sludge of weariness dangles from


    my wrists like Graff Diamonds Hallucination,


    you unearth smiles like precious potter’s clay


    and soon we’re slipping through the rocky trees,


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    my hand hooked to yours—like two pins hanging from a line,


    determined to hold the same billowy white sheet upright.


    The sun is dancing in the crests and platters of the mountains,


    fracturing in your eyes that seem to be waltzing away with me.


    I don’t notice the baby blue shirt with that clean laundry smell


    that reminds me of you or a face cleaner than cut diamonds.


    Other hill billies trot through the crust of autumn, a drifting crush


    of people who seem to prance under your skin. If only the woods


    were as lonely as the forests in fairy tales and picture books.


    We gossip in lover’s language, steal sips from peak springs,


    searching purposely for the fall colors as we fall for each other.


    Arches of shattering, bursting fire color signal our arrival to you.


    And as I murmur at the marvel, my back to you,


    you spring, on edge for a turn, hardly capable of waiting


    for sight to cement into realization as firm as the rock nestled


    in black velvet.