Awash

This weather feels like lowlands
Nova Scotia: birth of full-hued
blues, soaked dirt browns
shrouded in cool sea fog.

Density of air.
Each step as if
into a glow of soft
low-beam headlight.

Evening, the film
of day a sheen
glossing nose and
forehead.

They call that grease.
They call that oil.

You never wore
deodorant (your
scent like dew
and heat). We drove
that island west
to east, road open
as a vein. "Salt of the
earth" a common phrase
for those we met
while biking, while
in bars.

Cape Split, we woke,
packs drenched in
rainy fits of dawn; camera
batteries water-logged.
Morning, dripping quiet
we cleared camp.

An arsenal of
photographs and here's
what's vivid: mud
and holding your hand,
your hand soft and
substantial as moss.

Nights like this, a city
darkens, ever-present
pink pollution gone
white, awash in
down. Warm, wet
low-tumble of late.

Weatherman assuring
this pattern will
pass, the rain—I hear
him promise—it will
stop. We can pick right
up where we left off—

sunny, mid-seventies,
a temperate breeze
in the breath of June.
Weather we're used to.

Clouds wring out above
my roof—showers often
have more to do with
a wanting to be cleansed
than cleaned.

.