you and I bedded down in the canyon
the nine ply of heaven
folded us in rain

the next morning the firewood
smoldered with dew
as you bathed
the stones in the springbed trembled
like flowers seen through campsmoke

then we parted like petalfall
as the gibbous old man looked on
still early without yet his companion

our horses neighed as they turned away
they too are old friends

over this land of spines and cactus quills
the sun and moon keep moving
not finding anywhere a soft seat

J.R. Forman’s work has appeared in Borderlands, The Ekphrastic Review, Literature of the Americas, Contemporary Studies in Modernism, Ramify, Make It New, and anthologies by Clemson University Press. An alum of the Ezra Pound Center for Literature Workshop at Brunnenburg Castle, Italy, and of the Great Books program at St. John’s College, Santa Fe, he is a lecturer at Tarleton State University who received PhDs from the University of Dallas and the University of Salamanca.