I.
You could have looked
if you wanted
at the woman's face, which was
the eroded face of a woman
who had spent many years
looking out
onto the steppes from
halfway up a mountain
and thought maybe once
or twice that
this was a desert.
You would have seen
her mouth part
as though to speak.
Instead she would
call mutely into
the airflow.
You could have looked at her
face as her mind passed
over the steppes, her gaze
smoothing the rough
branches and twisted shrubs
and sand
like a hand
over a tangled swatch
of new sheared wool,
or an eye following wind.
And you missed her
and you miss her
and you don't know who
she was and you don't
know who you are.
II.
You missed the steppes
and you were a desert.
You are, you know,
following her like a hand.
Like the airflow,
tangled and halfway eroded.
You missed who you are
for years and years.
And years like sand
in wool. Or an eye.
