willing to be the steps behind you, the
traces and threads of what broke you untie, the closer
we get to where you came from.
 And anything that was ever special, anything 
 about me that ever illuminated your eyes
 may already be leaving cell by patient cell,
 frame by frame.
 So I drove the coast alone, by trees swaying
 in wind, trying to tear free from roots, by sands that are 
 a smooth, unchanged blanket of still grains. There
 were places still untouched, lonely shores, canyons, and 
 forests that never echo with us.
 I get through seasons, mark and note the years, the 
 traces that eyes and skin and vows can leave on 
 someone, how one person can be the place you come from.
 And anything that was ever close, anything about me 
 that ever kept you safe may be there flickering,
 glow by glow, pulse by pulse.
 So I moved through you as you moved through me by 
 the dark corners you showed, the roots too entangled to
 tear out now by places changed, marked and unknowable,
 spectres that move me through seasons back to where I came from.

