I Thought I Heard You Talking But It Was Only Me

The rabbit hisses on a bed of garlic, onions and spice. One shot; the sound of a cough and then thanksgiving. Necessity was absent, but it is coming so I open old skills hesitantly. It was a warm life running at sunset and then a pistol sprinkling a little blood where the mountain lion hunts. The rabbit is young and small but can feed me for two days over rice. This is the salary I get without counting hours or braiding my hair with a silk tie of conformity.
The observing setting sun knows what is coming and says nothing as I wipe my hands on sage and green denim, then spit wipe my knife.
Last night I bought you and your new wife a simple dinner in a Tex-Mex diner because I was in your feet not long ago; though I didn't catch cars with my thumb. You knew about the coming storm and that conversation alone was worth a table and a glass of water that wasn't rain rolling off of canvas. You knew of the season of the fig tree though your words became tired quickly, the way the road ages even a good conversation; and two people have conversation on tap...they know nothing about fasting without words for weeks and that kind of wanting. And then you and your packs,and a boxed guitar I never saw outside its casket, are in my truck and I take you three miles away from town and questions so you can sleep in a quiet free camp. Some people need lights of the streets to sleep, and I wonder about this as I leave for my trailer across town.
This morning I brought donuts to the camp I delivered you to at the cotton wood grove on the Big Horn River. You were already gone though I wasn't to meet you till ten. After I walked down to where you tent was and studied the flattened grass to know your night and morning, I ached into the sunrise toward the Wedding of the Waters and hoped I'd find you both assembled there with packs lazy in the park. Last night's dinner was good-bye unspoken.
I ate two of the donuts and hated the warmth of the perfect morning dough. Hands sticky, I talked about leaving to my heart until there was no place to go except to step my shoes into the deep brown river, and rub my stickiest fingers in a fist against my chest.