Classic Poem

His arm grew heavy on me as he slept, the oaks'
grey branches scratching the roof of the Chevy.
How close to my home we drove, east on 8,
not stopping 'till we curved into the mountains.
The morning was still cool and wet,
my wrists bound tight, my throat grown tight.
I pretended to sleep in California
where poison oak was red already,
the river stretched out thin across its bed.

The miners grab the river with both hands,
up and downstream, where my stiff arms point.
Hush, hush, hush the gravel circles shallow pans,
and we search, sift, sink deep in California.
The live oaks leaves with dusty thorns anoint
my broken skin. Be quiet, flesh to sand, reborn,
so he loved his first-loved girl to stone.

At swimming holes, I used to pull my shoes
off and let the water take my feet beneath
the glittered silt and wet my ankles, calves, wet
the parts of me that you called yours on my last night.
I'd swim until the river wove itself into my hair,
then lay out in the sun, half asleep, half awake,
lay my body down within the mountains.
I felt my pulse carve through the sandstone wash.

Now I hear the ocean through these hills.
the river in my mouth, this taste of gold.