back in Virginia, back on a road my dream knows
but likely never existed mostly dirt, winding through maple and pine
till it gently unspools into a broad meadow below me
grass spills down into a steep valley, rickety wooden fence and narrow stairs
the revelers descend, led by the wedding party I am with them, one of them,
bridesmaid or groom or disembodied dream pulled
deeper into the screen of trees, halfway between myth and memory, back to a green that tried for decades to convince me it meant home, earth shot through with clay red as a scab
while my body lies breathing without me, beside a man
untouched by that red soil
here in the deep crease of my mind this valley
glows night after night road patient and endless, a vein buried inside my eye
thick with ghosts this yearn this quiet aching dream
