Empty Rings

What is it about today, just another day, just an ordinary day, we have so many of them they tend to flit by before we can see them,

butterflies or hummingbirds flashing colors but no patterns visible,

the sun shone hot today on a slide of steel and I saw a river, muddy, red, green and glistening under maple trees

boughs heavy with ripe leaves,

i imagine us daintily dancing from limb to limb,

like the 5th graders, but with something other than kettle corn on our minds.

These days among days, mid July,

dry,

I remember running my hands through the wind outside your car,

pushing back at the oncoming currents of breath, letting my arm be beat back to the rhythm of Rage

freedom of

no bills, no home, no needs

hot and arid, the middle of Montana at night,

where the stars reached out and struck us dumb,

with beauty, love, stillness of time.

We felt forever, and never, and nothing, and everything,

all crashing within our breath, and hands,

and bare skin.

I would encircle your ribs with my strong arms, holding you in,

making sure you didn’t fall,

didn’t disintegrate into dust and float out the window.

You were so fragile, this boy trying to be a man, to be strong,

to be all that you could be to run away from yourself.

 

 

 

I miss you.