FOR ME

Naked girls reach for the light

                    downstream,
                    stage right,
                    day’s end:

with alabaster limbs washed
after a good rain, leaves
puddled in the shadows
at their feet as the sun sets
a little south of the western myth
and the three hundred pagan souls
that owned this canyon,

hills worn smooth—
centuries of cobbles seized
by knotted roots
chasing water
still claim the creek.

A battered jeep limps
home for repairs
down the road between us,
a day at play
in fresh mud and snow

and the girls keep dancing
unconcerned and unafraid

                    of time

                    for me.