To My Little Sister,
Who Asks About Running

If you loop
the strings tight over foot

and step firm
through the thick

fog emerging
from your own shallow

find there’s room
that dawn lit

such soft corners
aching for you

to hide, to trace
each feathered tip

of the dew-kissed
wheatgrass

as daybreak invites
you, once more: breathe

the cold air
warm again

set the pace
toward another

horizon lifting
brilliant tremors,

tangled rays,
the old
sweet soil,
the same

today I hold
wondering how

stones we kicked
too far to see

settled into
themselves

their new ecologies
bound together

by clay, red-heavy
and spanning

past spring, and
crumbling,

the country road
straight-backed by wire-

parted fences,
I know

slowly, weakly
we burn

our faces pinker
each morning

but sister, steady
the shaky engine

we’ll tend
the memory fields

back home, forever
you’ll ask when

and already you can’t