No Help for That | Jackie Clark

I am traveling straight but feel a pinch in the landscape.
The purple mountains I pass eclipse the idea of volcanoes,

Fastened tightly to the earth, hard-backed and shelled.
Clouds move along as warnings. Their fog, a veil

Which covers the modesty of looking-in. I take off
My shoes and pretend to be motherless.

The pavement is still warm from the sun hours earlier.
With all that there is to say I keep a tight lip and write,

“As I lay conspiring, I have lost my view of the periphery.”
“The future relies solely on the distant arrangement of horizon.”

I prefer that we have this time to spend together, conferring
In the heat of dusk about what we’ll do when we are no longer

Stuck out here together, exchanging salutations and arrested
Reveries as the dusk turns to dark. Unconvinced that anything

Exists after this night, let’s remove a piece of our clothing
For every shiver the latent weather sobers us with.

I foolishly anticipate depth during these opaque hours.
It is with the first signs of light that I grow concerned.