Ellie Hastings

(1)

We found the hill, the sepia stones,
hard edges still damp with the ache of winter. 
Gold-rimmed afternoon, almost too late for starting out 
with our packs resurrected from disuse, musty 
as old manuscripts. We peeled away the layers 
of our clothing as they grew damp, and my lips 
sucked icy water from the bottle you held. 
I tasted dust on your fingertips, rough 
as bark, gripping the rocks that bruised us. 
The mystery of altitude, the changing weather 
as we climbed. Snow dripped from the newborn leaves 
and glistened on our bodies like sweat. 
The sky fled upwards. 
How I touched you, again and again. 











(2)
Beneath slick sheets his bones have begun to fray. 
Deep lies decay, thick as kudzu, the foreign seed 
that smothers. The tenebrous earth awaits the blood. 
To what end? The pain hums against his sleep. 
Do you hear it through the walls? 
Once you were small, and he was sturdy. 
Your softest whimpers could in a moment unbolt him 
from his bed. Now you keep his vigil in the lamplight 
and count the hours with half-smoked cigarettes. 
The right words and the regrets are tangled like briars 
on the banks of dark waters that seep past our end. 
Wine in your forgotten glass long since gone sour.