Letter to Anne Bradstreet

Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, Summer 2005 

My crewmates

snore in their tents,

two young men

 

full of lentils and rice.

The day’s work

echoes in my legs.

 

Soon I, too, will sleep. 

A breeze washes down

the bare back of the ridgeline

 

like a memory

of the one I love

beside a lifeless fire,

 

where all is at rest but one hand

on the page, the whisper of paper

and skin, the faint hiss of heat.