the good humor of lost moments

"Romance is a log in the middle of the forest,"
he iterated in verdant cackles.
A finger, sliding cheekward, stops
the smell of peet, of grubs, of chipmunk,
and skunk.

"That is not romance," she shudder-sighed,
"That's despair."
A kiss, stops mid-pucker waits
disipates and she is left
with under-thighs chafed on hard
western hemlock's rough bark ,
fern caressing her calves.

A sharp shinned hawk calls out
in sharp trilled triplet-near-squeaks
the ache of God's best admonition:
"Beloved! Beloved! Beloved! Beloved!"

then the warp of clever shuttles along
the weft of her tears, the fabric of desire
swaddles her heart there in the shadow
of an ancient douglas fir.

The log where she sits does not move.
She waits.

He is right.
He is gone.