Runoff

It’s morning in your lower west
where you retreated and seasoned in.
And summer heat is a snowslope
where you dug out a hibernation cave,
you landscaped the arid valley
with the rivers passing through,
you drove treelineward with the sunroof
open to the first rain
as birds pummeled the voices of DJs—

drops leap but not free of the stream,
sound flung but leashed,
and I shed layers
as sun grazes close and
ice is linoleum in the valley.

Water magnetized water
and the town held you and your orbit
became a ceremony of trying to go, waterborne,
on out, anonymous, common.
Leave the powerlines and wires,
leave behind ditches aspiring onward

aspiring, break free.
You were the only one going anywhere,
the gravel pelted the underbelly
of the vehicle, you squinted into brightness as
you went out from there where you were.