Dust Is 90% Skin

I remembered it a pit,
tall red walls with the water held in.

But today, it's trellised to the east with ivy
swinging like loose promises,
speckled with yellow and red wildflowers
brilliant against the deep ivy,
against the fallen terrain,
against the memory of shooting clay birds
from that peak just to the west.

He would cock back the heavy spring,
trail the string in in his hands light as twigs.
"pull it slowly." In the voice only fathers have
and then release the bird wingless
to be scattered like fog
across the bare walls below.

I remembered it a pit,
and I picked up the tiny box that held his name,
his seed, his fallen hairs, those ten slightly crooked toes
and the nose that found its way back to the mirror
only just this morning
and made my way to the peak
just to the west, where we'd shoot clay birds.

I sifted his fingers
through the damp sprinkling of my palm,
patted him down like a bulb, like a delicate shoot.

I planted his feet like cedars at the base of the gorge,
hoping for water. I climbed to the summit
and planted what was left: his footless legs,
his shoulders too thin for support, his ideas
legless in the upturned soil between my fingers.

And what wouldn't bury
and what clung to me, I carried out of the gorge like a compass,
hands in front, upturned for the reading.

But that was ten years ago.
This Easter the cedars are tall
and the ivy hangs in locks like his.
The entire valley is full of butterflies,
and from the bottom, in the midday wash of sunshine
they flutter like live confetti
through the sweet breath of spring gardenias.