San Pablo Ridge

I worried I would lose you
in your trouble. I didn’t know.
In summer, we walked the trail
along the ridge’s flank.  I went again
in winter.  Stopping to rest
at the edge of an outcrop or de-
scending a wash strewn with rocks
I would remember what we said, here
and here. The scrim
of grey that lines each twig
in the bare thickets along the trail looks
like frost or ash—a shimmering
glaze of condensation or what remains
when a slow fire has burned a thing
through, like an untapped cigarette
turned all to ash but maintained
by a delicate architecture, by
tiny fragments that must latch
one to the other, holding the shape.

— Melissa Mack