Minnesota (Poetry Journal, 2/08)

Here by heaving roots of red oak

we dig in earth side by side, as if

we lived alone but craved some comfort

in this manic night. Our fingers hurt

and our nails scratch and break.

We are digging down to boulders

here where the glaciers stopped, an

exhaustion dragged through all this flat

expanse of scrub. Your eyes are gray

as timber ponds, your mouth a set

of granite lines. When my knee brushes

against your jeans, you shift your balance

slightly and go on digging as if the burial

grounds were full and every ghost stood

chanting at your back. Tomorrow there

might be ice and a blessing for your plate,

there might be cages or a final bone left

out where the sleeping garden hums its own

lullaby. If we can fly by then, I will contact

you, my palms offered up to yours, a way

of coming home like a river on a bed of straw.