Wyoming

You’re scared of Oblivion

You confess on the wooden porch
overlooking Star Valley
Lines of sprinklers,
arteries to the alfalfa
Unfurling hills quilted in green,
gravel roads, and arbitrary borders of barbed-wire
Unstepped ground sings in the mountains behind us
duetted once perhaps by pioneer hymns
We sit under an oceanic sky

It’s staring us in the face

You ask me what I’m most afraid of
“Doubt, I guess”

I mean do you love me
on the inside
The sun dips beneath the mountains on Idaho’s side
The sprinklers die, and a cloud swims in from the north
seafoam
In the morning
what if the sun ceases finally
his daily hike up the range to our backs
eternally starry valley
Is this God’s fingerprint or a hole in the earth
30

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