No, there will never be just this
          ground. Never always-empty skies, not with

          how we’ve bloomed. How we’ve moved
               into this world of wild, of pine, of you

     and I and the way I try to pool and pull us—like water,
          like grass. We’ve become both the breeze and the bird

               whistling, the moss growing green against the black
                    of your boots and the puddle they pass through.

                    You’ve seen me strung, heard me sung
          in the toads’ croaks, the broken buzz of the bugs

     in the trees and the twig-snap that wraps it—I wish I were
          that sudden. I want to be that steady. You and I are past

          and future events. Right now we’re walking the streets, thick
     sheets of gnats woven through the air and our teeth, so many

               we don’t even speak. When I pause
          to take your photo, I place you in the left of the frame.

     The limbs of low trees hang right beside you, behind you, holding
                         your body as the aperture closes

               on this image. I wait for you to find the evening
          glow just right. Right now we’re lost in all this

     happening. We’re just things beneath magnolias, their leaves
          so thick and waxy, shining, made for light. Things

          with tight-pressed lips. We’re wandering parks, treading
     the mud and needles and needing—things washed away

               within the hour, the Salisbury snow always gone
          with the rain, always sung and then undone.