Untitled

I no longer find
you anywhere but
here

A far field
and the last elm tree
we loved the elms
they unlike
any other
showed us up
into their heights
their secret world
of leaves
you were leaving

a thick warm fog comes
and I meet you there
the elm tree
a witness tree
under its branches
I lay you down
on my old soft quilts my
picnic basket
filled with a hundred
old glass jars
of salves, and pastes, and
tinctures you sleep
and I don't know
if you know
we're here

you sleep
and I touch you and
gently put
and rub
and soothe
onto you
these ointments

this one dark with clove and
fennel and red clay
in a circle
on the skin
over your heart

and this one
light and clear with
lavender and mint and
crushed marigold
to your temples

and this one
geranium and
cardamon and
sweet chamomile
in an avocado oil
I touch it
to your lips

I don't know if
you know we're here and
if you wanted me to
love you this way and
when the sun turns the
fog light and then
gone and warms and
melts all these
preparations onto you and
into you and you wake
warm and awake and
under a tree
the last elm tree
I am gone
just a memory
of the smells in your skin and

every string on my
old guitar is broken
save one
and I play it
the sound still good
still true

I love what I love
I can't find you
anywhere

and I love you just the same
where you are and aren't
what you wished
what you don't

when you woke
and how you sleep

a warm fog
and the elm tree
and the red clove clay drying
and dusting
onto your sheets.