Shape a shape for affection, for mates who've left here for good. Left the coffee cold, the door open. Within my eyes the night will not make its soft landing. Only black cottonwood appears to me. Shiny darkness of its leaves - their undersides in silver comfort my cabin thought where the valley is memory.
Mates are memory.
Their beards and untucked shirts. They lived like slow-hopping birds in understory shrubs and shade. They packed their stuff off to houses in town. Trekked away under leaves that turned fire gold against the most rain-ruined skies. They never saw that gold.