Widow's Walk

You flower in red deserts

and fade the sun.

Hell is a marathon.

Keeping pace with soldiers' ghosts,

I run.

One mile to go.

I wait. You go.

My blue door is open to

the shaved-off atoms of Seattle,

bumblebees in the frozen acacias,

the stratum of smoke over

Antietam in my living room.

You bloom like a wound in snow.

I wait. You go.

Apocalypse without reckoning,

everyone prays to the east.

I hold you like a shell holds the sea.

You flower in red deserts

where I run.

You flood the dry beds

between burnt rocks

and in my room.

Pour into me, ebb slowly.

I wait. You go.

Your seed swells

my throat into a howl.

You burn my open eyes

and fade the sun.