Seattle 129, or Poem-a-day #195

This poem is sort of for Alice, and all the other novelistas with whom I'm slowly growing kinship.

Raizl. Rasia. Rachel.

Tonight, there’s a blizzard
between us, a veil of static.
She is a shaky shifting shadow
of a poem, too uncertain
to translate.

Her poems are moonlit deer:
half shadow,
half dart.

I wait for her in the trees,
net in hand, in case
she looks ready to bolt.
Sometimes, I catch her
as she glitters over the horizon.

Other nights, I climb down
so we can have tea
and conversation
while I scribble notes.

Or we lie in the field,
elbow to elbow,
hip to hip,
gulping stars.

In the morning,
she leaves her tracks
on paper. Sometimes,
I don’t even remember
my part in it: her vehicle,
her hands, her manic typist
with rough feet
and a slow burning lantern.