At The Gatlin House

In Boone, North Carolina,
a bed and breakfast (name conked
............void)
and timetraveling glass
fused as a conscious window.
Stirring my oatmeal......... Nikky sat across.
Comforting her Stroop............. over tea.
I billowed in synch with......... the steam trapped.

...............On top
of a mountain among
a hundred years--not a century, yet--of homemade furniture.
........Dreadlocks
trickled Nikky's
shoulder and where she had gone
without me, turned, she was
....................feeling
a little of the meeting place. The one
she had described
over chutney and rice, at dinner.
Being in love with a woman, and not another woman, and not just,
and having to be allowed to do these,

...................stamp imaginary
............snow from
.........................a boot that won't
..........................................quit, complaining. Shoe.
Those trees doing their night
along the viral twist gravel,

path that maps vertigo to
prize a hill. At the top

by the stone wall, size
lapped relevance. A

minor treeline had to
topple to fill the eyes'

share: gargantuan anti-god
sleepknees beneath wreathsheet,

the hypothetical rolling
while I'm watching them mountain.

(her facial real, her reflection
already drained on roadtrip--)
................Wherever
..........................you walk,
................................wife, you
.........................................help it stare.