Cross Country, Cook County, Minnesota

My skis are two sighs taking turns in the snow,

tracing two parallel paths through the woods.

The tracks that I’m making won’t ever kiss, existing forever

hip-width apart, or at least until spring rushes in,

adamant to flush the creeks with snowmelt.

I leap from leg to leg on narrow strips of fiberglass,

an untrained dancer in a series of perilous poses,

each pulling me deeper into the trees. The woods, old and tall,

make a doll of my body, young, small, and each branch is frosted

with snow like a wedding cakes, making the forest

a delicate lace. Each whisper of the wind lifts the snow,

provoking the sky to flash with a flutter of winking.  

When I pause to listen to my breath and to the stillness,

I hear instead some empty loudness, deep and clear,

perhaps an echo of everything happening far from here

melted into one insistent sound. The half-faded map

that is nailed to the tree reads in tiny red print: you are here.