Getting Your Rocks Off

Reading clouds beyond the road

I calculate our distance, survey

the space between our clothes

where rising curves and mountain

tug for air, touch, release.

You drive to the hairpin slope,

hesitate, turn up and in. We ride

on every naked fear you have

and discover that men like us

are not all granite, shale,

deceptive quartz, or

glittering layers of mica.

From here you see the whole world

differently: brownskin,

tufts of black grass.

And many times I have given myself

to summits like these.

Ride in, ride high.

Ride until the clouds break.

You will learn to read rain. You will

follow the white gravel it leaves.