Can’t bring home the Sangre de Cristos with me.
As if I need another mountain in my back yard—
but these peaks are different, somewhat softer,
somewhat closer, somehow new.
A photo isn’t the same.
Can’t bring back the strange jazz of Friday night
with its ancient clarinetist, its renegade bass.
Can’t bring the back porch where we drank tequila.
Can’t bring the bright howl of coyotes
heralding dawn. I would like to pack
the conversation Julie and I had
this morning, the one in which she shared
her unmet dreams. And the laughter
in class today when hope was plucked
like a chicken and made into soup,
and the way the clouds were strangely blown
across the morning sky. The dark red gourd
Wendy carried with her. Scent of pinion.
Sound of Rachel’s drum. We can’t bring anything with us, really.
A toothbrush, a change of clothes, some boots.
But nothing that matters. Nothing
that we most want to hold. Like the love
I feel for these people who gather
in small rooms to talk about poems. Like
the friendship that blooms when we dare
to know just how much we can never bring back.