She was everywhere I looked
but nowhere to be seen.
I pedaled for miles, braked
by jerks down woody curves
and wet my shoes at the ford.
Such distance was forbidden,
too far from home’s safe linkage of voices.
I pumped and pumped
through sweat or rain or dust
of shattered leaf. Tipped over
I skinned my knees
and once a dog drew blood.
She should have risen naked from the weeds,
burdocks in her hair.
She should have turned her belly
silvered with bubbles in upstream pools
or clung by bare legs, about to plummet
from that apple by the bend.
But under the boughs the front wheel
spun on its side as I knelt
in nothing but fruit.
At last I found pressed grass
where she had lain, and signs
she kept no faith.
Before I left that place,
before speed flung me past
all hope of simple touch,
I stood on a hillside falling into the sun.
She swam across a field through wheat,
a single maple, flocks of crows.
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