Reunion

Crickets call to crickets
And toads to toads
But not to me
Through locked doors
And farm house windows
With broken latches.

You slip in like hot wind,
Like junebugs through light cracks—
You, as in Lonely Old Me—
To lie down in this new bed
Having been lost for two springs.
Where have you been?

I know you by your hands,
The way they wrap my arms
To clutch my back, touch shadows
In my face, test new found fat
And thrill that love is feeding
Me past ache and pretty bones.

Like poetry you chant
My lover’s name in Denver
Searching for his daughter
The way you always did the year
You held me through blue winter
And a bluer spring.

I love. I love. You sing it still.
Your singing more than once
Has made me crazed, has made me.
Now I sing the same two sounds to you.
Who began this song? No matter.
We come home when called.

Moved by your easy return,
Your latent tenderness, I hold you
In this dark house. We wait.
The prairie sings itself to sleep.
Love comes home to us like morning,
Close and cool, even in August.

2014