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Skies shudder behind morning’s fog.
Western cedar trees blackmail the streets as emptiness swallows the world.
In the park out back, through the muscle of construction, my breath patters against the dew.
Beneath my breath, beneath the long season of unknowing, beneath Mt. Rainier’s judgement, a dead black-capped chickadee marks my trail.
I’ve lathered myself with distance. Rolled my shoulders. Stretched my hips.
In my eyes: the yellowing husk of the sun begets.
I imagine the final days of the goldflame spirea.
How long until Death and I consummate?
A drop of rain remembers my forehead. I make my way up the hill.
*
We stole away into the field of our unbecoming.
Hush now, the closed storefronts bode; the liminal space between of and am beats its chest.
Black clouds read the town’s story as sparrows skitter from blue blossom bushes.
We’ve done our share of mousing into and out of Grocery Outlet, wine-raged, scouring for masks.
I’m reflecting the best I can with the streets I raised: Rainier, Renton, Lakeridge, Rampant-Against-All-Else, Steller’s-Jay-Preening-Its-Wing, Oak-Caught-In-My-Wind.