After you died, I crossed seven state borders. I didn’t know you had left, then. Instead, the world shifted its weight. Maybe this is where it all began. Maybe this is where home knotted itself to me, said, I’m here, you’ve found me, now go
Maybe this is how I came to process movement–the change from one state to the next, the way the land curves, dries out, becomes wet again
I found home cupped inside of me like a constellation
You were there, you and you and you and you
You were all there, all of you, folding
into me as this country folds into one, great ageless workhorse
The wish of its landscape, its withers and mane—
A private, strong seed
A glacier
A deep brown stretch of desert
A cool, blue sky.
In Idaho, a woman once told me we become these things when we die.
I didn’t disagree.
After I crossed all those borders again, I found out.
A gulp of air / The seed, beginning, again
