A cliff’s turned collar sheds sunset gold.

Bare rock darkens to accept

what the night sky lowers

through dense steam onto stone,

into river breath and this truck driver’s gaze.

Pulling freight between white lines and starlight,

wanting to hitchhike upriver, scrape the dust

of many roads into a slow, cool swirl near

rapids, then lay out naked beneath shimmer,

breathing in and out, waiting for a crescent

to silver a clear path to needed change.

                        ~

I see all women in the sway of river birch.

I lay out on warm stone while bats

wing-brush ciphers, dusk rolling

dark blue thighs onto the burlaps of sky,

my transit across thin crust is a mural

hinged on trust and faith. I imagine

the moon lowering a lace sari onto two lovers

sleeping back-to-back. Raising my arms,

I spread the ten roads of my fingers

inside river breath and this light.

Charles  F.  Thielman