—for Corryn

lugging its hide up a hill
& you punch the gas a little
harder early fall we’re going

somewhere I think I’m reading you
Galway Kinnell & he’s crunching
around a boneyard of burnt sticks

thinking of his kids after each
poem you make a little mm
like it’s a chicken tender

sunlight on the Susquehanna
hills of trees turning
toward tenderness

if some plague took
both our lovers would you be
apocalyptically

mine it’s not just sex it’s my laugh
like yours it’s you in the mirror
when I bandanna my hair

it’s the world’s second smallest sundae it’s
the end of the road the cherry
on top you don’t even like it’s cold