by Doug Ramspeck

It was much later I realized—
we were living outside Provo—

that everything around us
was imagined: stepping

from the shower,
sipping coffee, the moon

swelling its anthem after dark.
And when we closed our eyes,

what existed was the way
Utah Lake was surrounded

on three sides by mountains,
how we stood at the shore

and gazed at the flatness of the water,
the Wasatch peaks. And in this reverie

we whispered: Dear Liquid, Dear Mud.
And what, we asked, of the supplications

of the flesh, the contusions
of breaths that make a life?

And before you packed your car
then returned to Ohio,

what you pinned
to the refrigerator

began like this:
Dear Me, Dear You.