I remember that first whiskey kiss,
desire clambering up the ladder of my ribs.
My hair was wreathed in woodsmoke
and the soft crush of leaves.
I wore his flannel coat every day that winter.

Driving those backroads, I could count
the lazy bales slumped in the snow,
each fencepost strung with barbed wire
till we found our place in the windbreak,
where breath was our own kind of weather.

Across the acres of corn stubble and stars,
our folks slept in the depths of their quilts.
The clocks in our kitchens trembled at the hour,
while we left warmth in the wake of our hands.

Come spring the thaw ran the ruts of the road
and our stand of cottonwoods began to bud.
And on a night riven by lightning,
we gave in to the rhythm of rain.

After, with the truck stuck up to the axle,
he sent me, storm-blind and aching, through the field.
I remember hope, slender as a grass blade,
and guilt, caught like a thorn in my throat.