Letting It Go
                           -------------

In my dream you sent me letters
with two messages, the good one in code.
I walk at night anyway.
Even with my star map, the sky
is indecipherable.  Then somewhere
in this wild air, lightning, and suddenly
a sweet smell.  It is a sign - time
to put this thing away.

I played the story over and over
looking for a door I didn't see
or a window crack I could have slipped through
before that end that never really finished it, if only
to keep you standing there, perfect again in July,
the kisses I tucked within your lips
still right and (you being you) inevitable.

I cannot make what was
into something else.  Will not make ugly,
as you have done, to make an expedient end.

In Wyoming they tell the story
of Fleet Foot, daughter of Spotted Tail,
how when she died of coughing sickness in March -
The Moon of the Snowblind - when streams are locked
in ice and sleet makes white patches on the bare earth,
he had her wrapped in deerskin,
(tied the thongs himself),
then hung her, swaying,
between the two white ponies she had loved.
Some say they saw him follow her,
ponies prancing, right into the bitten moon.

I would have this go
like that.

--Wisdom, March 1, 1994