From New Hampshire
– Rosanna Warren

It’s not your mountain
but I almost expect
to meet you here

I think you have taken a long late evening walk
Your heavy shoes glisten with dew
I hear your footsteps pause on the dirt road

and I know you are picking out
the dark mass of the sleeping
mountain from the dark

mass of night and testing the heaviness of each
Your hands are small but they know weights and measures
You are a connoisseur of boundaries

You loved the bears
because they pass between
leaving their stories

in fat pudding turds on the grass
Here it’s raspberries they’re after not our
sour Vermont apples     No matter     You will find them

When they hoot in courtship
you always hoot back
more owl than bear

They don’t mind     They always answer you
And tonight I imagine you’re out waiting up for them
by the berries, which is why you don’t cross

the dew-sopped lawn
don’t press open the
warped screen door

of the kitchen where I sit late     by a single glowing bulb

—
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